NEW YORK — Linda Mason, a trailblazing journalist who became the first female producer of the “CBS Evening News,” has died at 84, CBS News said.
Mason died peacefully Wednesday night surrounded by family, according to a company statement.
She started at CBS as a radio desk assistant in 1966 and spent 47 years with the network. She worked with anchors Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather and later served as senior producer of the “Evening News,” executive producer of “CBS Sunday Morning,” vice president of public affairs and head of the news division’s standards department.
For “Sunday Morning,” she covered President Ronald Reagan’s first trip to the Soviet Union, the funeral of Japanese Emperor Hirohito and unrest in China before the Tiananmen Square uprising.
She also oversaw the documentary series “CBS Reports,” the newsmagazine “Eye to Eye” and two “60 Minutes” anniversary specials.
Mason earned 13 Emmy Awards, three Peabody Awards, an Edward R. Murrow Award, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and the grand prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards. A native of Middletown, New York, she graduated with honors from Brown University in 1964.
Sources: CBS News. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Sven Scheuermeier sveninho / CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.
