Collection Summary

The PBS NewsHour Collection includes nearly 15,000 episodes of the PBS NewsHour and its predecessor programs beginning in October 1975, including The Robert MacNeil Report (1975-1976), The MacNeil/Lehrer Report (1976 – 1983), The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour (1983 – 1995), The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (1995 – 2009), and PBS NewsHour (2009 -). The programs originally aired nationwide on public television stations, five nights a week; starting in 2013, the series added weekend news coverage. Covering national and worldwide news and public affairs, the programs feature interviews with leading newsmakers including presidents, Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, secretaries of state, and with world leaders, including the Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, Fidel Castro, Muammar Khadafy, Yasser Arafat, Menachem Begin, Boris Yeltsin, Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher. The collection includes extensive coverage of U.S. election campaigns, African-American history, global and domestic health care, poverty, technology, immigration debates, the end of the Cold War, terrorism, the economy, climate change, energy issues, religion, education issues, rural life, scientific exploration, poetry and the media.

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Collection Background

The Robert MacNeil Report went on the air on October 20, 1975 and has continued under subsequent series titles through the present, now known as the PBS NewsHour. PBS NewsHour is produced by NewsHour Productions LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Greater Washington Educational Television Authority (WETA). In 2016, the Council on Library and Information Resources awarded a grant to WGBH, the Library of Congress, and WETA to digitize, preserve and make publicly accessible the PBS NewsHour Collection from 1975 - 2007. Transcripts for the majority of the collection were provided by the NewsHour. In 2018 and 2019, the Internet Archive provided copies of episodes recorded off-air from 2009 - 2019. As of February 2019, AAPB has not yet digitized the year 2008 due to limited funding. In addition, there are 545 additional episodes that have not been located. Please contact us if you have any information about missing dates.

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