Bernard Shaw CNN 1940-2022

Bernard Shaw, the venerable TV news anchor who helped turn CNN into a powerhouse, has died. He was 82.

Shaw died Wednesday from pneumonia not related to COVID-19, his family said.

Based in Washington, D.C. when CNN launched, Shaw, known as Bernie to friends and colleagues, was the cable news channel’s lead anchor for two decades until his retirement in 2001.

During his tenure, Shaw anchored major breaking news events, like the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981, the Tiananmen Square student revolt in 1989 and every presidential election.

But it was his coverage of the Gulf War in 1991 that helped transform CNN’s fortunes, establishing the channel as a news juggernaut. Shaw reported from Baghdad during the war, the first conflict that was broadcast live for the world to see.

“What I strove for was perfection, which was impossible to achieve,” he told NPR in 2014. “If I’m covering a story that’s of particular interest to African-Americans, I want to be certain that I cover that story as thoroughly as possible, as I would any other story. And being African-American, I would be the critic most critical of me if I failed to do the best job possible with that story.”