CBS "Face the Nation"
host Bob Schieffer will give his final signoff Sunday, and he promises this time around, he'll stay retired.
The veteran journalist has been trying to retire for a decade,
reports The New York Times, but says CBS asked him to stay on. But on Sunday, he'll end a gig that's lasted for 24 years and made him a steady presence.
Schieffer has been employed by CBS for 46 years, and told the Times that most of the recognition in his lengthy career came "after most people retired."
And while many people retire at around age 65, Schieffer has marked some of his major career achievements after he became a senior citizen.
Over 13 years since his 65th birthday, Schieffer has moderated three presidential debates (with his first one coming during that time), wrote a memoir, and led his news program to its highest number of viewers.
But he's been looking at his retirement since 2003, when he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Schieffer's cancer went into remission, but after that, he said, he looks "at everything as a temporary assignment."
He also pointed out that he is cancer-free and his health is not the reason for his retirement.
In 2005, he said he planned to retire in early 2007, but also in 2005, Schieffer replaced Dan Rather as the host of the "CBS Evening News," staying there for a year and a half after he got strong ratings.
In 2007, he said he'd stay before a new president was inaugurated, and CBS also persuaded him last year to stay again.
He said CBS did not let him go because it did not know who would be replacing him, and has finally chosen CBS News Political Director John Dickerson to take over the "Face the Nation" chair.
Dickerson is inheriting a solid, well-regarded program that draws some 3.4 million viewers a week in its first 30 minutes, compared with 2.8 million for the hour-long competing programs "Meet the Press" on NBC and "This Week" on ABC.
The show expanded to an hour long in 2011, but as the second half hour is not shown everywhere, its viewership drops to 1.9 million people after the first half hour is finished.
CBS News President David Rhodes said Schieffer is a star because people who watch his show are "interested in someone with experience asking good questions with some authenticity."
But Schieffer said he did not want to weigh in on other networks' stars who are facing problems, such as NBC's Brian Williams and ABC's George Stephanopoulos.
The journalist says he doesn't think he's changed much over the years. He started as a newspaper reporter in the 1960s with The Fort Worth Star-Telegram before joining CBS in 1969, becoming its chief Washington correspondent in 1982.
"I wrote 'This Just In,' and after that I anchored the debate, in 2004, and I think a lot of people came to know me as a result of those two things," he told The New York Times. "I think that people just became familiar with me just because I had been there and others had come and gone."
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Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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