Fred W. Friendly, the pioneering television producer and one time president of CBS News, has died after a series of strokes. He was 82.
Friendly died Tuesday at his New York home, CBS said.From 1959 to 1964, Friendly was executive producer of "CBS Reports," putting out landmark programs like "Harvest of Shame," "Biography of a Bookie Joint" and "The Population Explosion."
Friendly became president of CBS News in March 1964. He resigned abruptly on Feb. 15, 1966, when the network broadcast an "I Love Lucy" rerun while rival NBC went live with a Senate hearing on Vietnam.
Friendly later wrote, "I must confess that in my almost two years as the head of CBS News I tempered my news judgment and tailored my conscience more than once. Perhaps it was this, as much as the dispute over the Vietnam hearings, that prompted me to get out while I still could."
He also reflected: "Because television can make so much money doing its worst, it often cannot afford to do its best."
Together with Edward R. Murrow, Friendly "set the highest of standards, then lived up to them, taught them and demanded them of others," Dan Rather of CBS said Wednesday.
Rather remembered Friendly as "a great, lovable bear of a demanding man whose passion and drive made American journalism better."
"He was both my friend and my boss - which is often difficult," "60 Minutes" commentator Andy Rooney said Wednesday. "There aren't many people to whom I bow."