2008 Richard W. Couper Lecture

The 2008 Couper Lectureship was awarded to Roger Mudd, widely recognized for his many years of distinguished service at CBS News. His talk, titled “When the News Was the News,” was delivered to a gathering of the Fellows of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and the Secretary’s Circle on Saturday, May 17, at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., during a luncheon held in his honor.

Mudd joined the CBS Washington Bureau in 1961 and was one of a group of legendary CBS News broadcasters. He has covered a wide range of historic events, including the Congressional debates over Civil Rights legislation as well as Watergate and the Vietnam war.

In addition Mudd has served as weekend anchor for CBS Evening News, co-anchor of the weekday NBC Nightly News, co-host of Meet the Press and anchor for American Almanac. Most recently he has been the primary anchor for The History Channel.

Mudd has received numerous awards including the George Foster Peabody Award, the Joan Shorenstein Award for Distinguished Washington Reporting, and five Emmys.

The Couper Lectureship is an endowed program through which the Fellows recognize an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the values espoused by the Society. It is named for the late Richard W. Couper, past president of the Fellows.
 

Roger Mudd (left), 2008 Couper Lecturer & Murray Drabkin, President of the Fellows