NEW YORK -- Ernest Leiser, a pioneering foreign correspondent and producer for CBS News in the 1950s who helped expand the unit's documentary and news coverage in the 1960s, has died. He was 81. Leiser died Nov. 26 in his sleep of an apparent heart attack. He joined CBS News in 1953 as a correspondent for the science series Adventure and then became a part of the network's elite corps of foreign correspondents, which included Eric Sevareid and Charles Collingwood. Mainly, he reported from Europe, where the ruling Communists in Hungary jailed him briefly while he was covering the 1956 revolt. But Leiser gained most of his notoriety working behind the scenes. He started out co-producing such broadcasts as Eyewitness to History and coverage of the John F. Kennedy-Richard Nixon presidential campaign in 1960. Later, he made his mark helping to produce CBS News' continuous coverage of Kennedy's assassination in 1963. The network named him director of news in 1964 and then executive producer of CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite, where he helped the show pass NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report in the ratings.
- 12/3/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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