SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Sig Mickelson, who helped build CBS News during the early days of television and made Walter Cronkite a national news figure, has died. He was 86.
Mickelson, the first president of CBS News, died Friday at Scripps-Mercy Hospital of complications from pneumonia, his wife, Elena, said Saturday. He had been hospitalized since Monday.Mickelson began working for CBS on radio in 1943, then was put in charge of news and public affairs at CBS Television in 1951. He founded the Radio and Television News Directors Association and was its president from 1948 to 1949.
"Sig was undoubtedly one of the pioneers of television news," Cronkite said Friday. "Much of what we accomplished can be traced to his leadership in the founding days of this incredible medium."
Mickelson helped arrange the first commercially sponsored television broadcast of a political event, the 1952 conventions, and assigned Washington newsman Cronkite to anchor the broadcasts.
"It is for his selection of Walter Cronkite that Sig will be remembered forever," said Don Hewitt, who directed coverage of those conventions and went on to create the newsmagazine "60 Minutes."
Mickelson hired Fred Friendly, who also became a president of CBS News, to collaborate with Ed Murrow on "See It Now," the documentary series famed for a piece that led to the downfall of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., in 1954, according to CBS News. Friendly died in 1998.
In 1953, Mickelson oversaw the first same-day U.S. broadcast of a foreign event with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and he went on to help expand the network's international camera crew and international coverage.
He was named the first president of the CBS News Division in 1959, then supervised the full broadcast of the 1960 Olympic games before leaving CBS in 1961 to lead the international broadcast division of Time Inc.
Mickelson later taught at Northwestern University, San Diego State University and Louisiana State University, and wrote seven books, including "The Decade that Shaped Television News," published in 1998.
Mickelson is survived by his wife, two children, two stepchildren and seven grandchildren.