As the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) nears completion of the PBS NewsHour Digitization Project, funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), we have identified nearly 600 episodes of PBS NewsHour predecessor series (primarily The Robert MacNeil Report and The MacNeil/Lehrer Report) that remain missing from the collection.
Early in the project, WETA/NewsHour Productions, the National Archives and Records Administration, and WNET contributed all of the copies in their possession to be digitized. The Library of Congress also contributed copies from their collection and are currently digitizing additional episodes in their collection that were missing from the other inventories. Internet Archive contributed copies of the episodes they recorded off air between July 2009 – October 2018. However, the following has still not been located: 45 dates from 1975; 125 dates from 1976; 14 dates from 1977; 24 dates from 1978; 131 dates from 1979; 171 dates from 1980; 19 dates from 1981; 9 dates from 1982; 3 dates from 1983; 3 dates from 1988; 2 dates from 1989; 2 dates from 1990; 3 dates from 1991; 11 dates from July 2009 – December 2009; 22 dates from 2010; 1 date from 2011; and 1 date from 2012.
For reference, below are the dates of each of the series in the collection:
The Robert MacNeil Report – October 20, 1975 – September 3, 1976
The MacNeil/Lehrer Report – September 6, 1976 – September 2, 1983
The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour – September 5, 1983 – October 20, 1995
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer – October 23, 1995 – December 4, 2009
PBS NewsHour – December 7, 2009 – present
If you are aware of any individuals or organizations that may have copies of missing NewsHour episodes, please let us know! Contact Casey Davis Kaufman at casey_davis-kaufman@wgbh.org with any information that you may have. We appreciate your help as we complete the preservation of this iconic collection!
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