Bernard Shaw, CNN’s first chief anchor, dies of pneumonia aged 82

The pioneering Black cable news anchor Bernard Shaw, who became a household name in the US with the launch of CNN, has died at the age of 82 after a bout with pneumonia unrelated to Covid-19, his family said Thursday.

When CNN debuted in 1980, Shaw served as the 24/7 news channel’s first chief anchor, and spent more than 20 years there before his retirement in February 2001. He reported on some of the biggest news stories from that era, including China’s deadly quelling of the Tiananmen Square student revolt in 1989, the first Gulf war in 1991 for which he went to Baghdad to report, and the 2000 presidential election, won by George W Bush following a controversial US supreme court ruling.

For a time, Shaw was the only Black journalist anchoring the evening news on a major network, inspiring other Black journalists who entered the industry. Abby Phillip, CNN’s Inside Politics anchor and a National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) member, tweeted Thursday that Shaw was “beloved”, “a trailblazer” and “a towering figure” of their profession.

Phillip also shared a video clip of the acceptance speech Shaw gave for a lifetime achievement award from the NABJ in 2007, in which he made an impassioned plea for the news media’s mostly white powerbrokers to seek out diverse viewpoints.

“Beyond this ballroom tonight, white males – wake up,” Shaw said from a podium in the grand ballroom of the Bally’s hotel in Las Vegas. “Globally, you are an island speck in an ocean of color. The reins of power will weaken and so will your grip – if you do not faithfully support our nation’s greatest strength: diversity.

“If you do not share, you will lose.”

In a separate statement, CNN chairman Chris Licht expressed condolences to Shaw’s wife, Linda, and their two children. He also thanked Shaw for remaining close to the network after his retirement, even providing viewers with “context about historic events as recently as last year”.

“Bernie was a CNN original,” Licht’s statement added.

According to CNN, Shaw was born in Chicago to Edgar Shaw, a railroad worker and housepainter, and Camilla Murphy Shaw, a housekeeper. He was later a US Marine, earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Illinois Chicago and translated his insatiable consumption of the news into a job as a reporter and anchor at a local television station in his hometown.

He worked his way up from there, spending the 1970s as a political reporter for CBS and Latin America correspondent for ABC before eventually landing at CNN.

Other major stories Shaw covered were a 1994 earthquake that killed 57 people and caused billions of dollars of damage in California’s San Fernando valley, and the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

“Thank you Bernie for paving the way,” tweeted fellow Black CNN anchor Don Lemon. “Your brilliance, courage [and] humility made the world a better place.”

Shaw’s family said they were planning a private funeral but intended to host a public memorial at a later time. In lieu of flowers, they asked for the public to consider donating to the University of Chicago’s Bernard Shaw Scholarship Fund.