Robert Duff McKeown, (; born October 10, 1950) is a Canadian investigative reporter and former all-star and championship
football player. He has also worked with
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
and
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
. McKeown returned to the CBC in November 2002 to host its investigative program, ''
The Fifth Estate'', a show which he had hosted from 1981 to 1990. Previously, McKeown spent eight years working for ''
Dateline NBC
''Dateline NBC'' is a weekly American television news magazine/reality legal show that is broadcast on NBC. It was previously the network's flagship general interest news magazine, but now focuses mainly on true crime stories with only occasio ...
'' as a correspondent and five years with
CBS News.
Early life
McKeown graduated from
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
and had a five-year professional
football career before dedicating himself to journalism.
Before beginning his broadcasting career, McKeown played professional football for five seasons with the
CFL
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
's
Ottawa Rough Riders. The Rough Riders won the
Grey Cup in 1973. McKeown was an all-star in 1974 at the position of
centre
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
* Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentri ...
.
Career
Dateline
McKeown's work with ''Dateline'' includes coverage of the
World Trade Center Attacks and the
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorism in the United States, domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995. Perpetrated by two anti-federal go ...
and investigations into
hurricane
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...
s,
tornado
A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...
s,
great white shark
The great white shark (''Carcharodon carcharias''), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or simply great white, is a species of large Lamniformes, mackerel shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major ocean ...
s and pastor
Benny Hinn
Toufik Benedictus "Benny" Hinn (born 3 December 1952) is an Israeli Christian televangelist, best known for his regular "Miracle Crusades"— revival meeting or faith healing summits that are usually held in stadiums in major cities, which are ...
(on whom he also did a ''Fifth Estate'' report).
CBS
A five-year stint with CBS News is highlighted by his award-winning coverage of the
Persian Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
. McKeown was the first reporter to broadcast from the front lines during
Operation Desert Storm
Operation or Operations may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity
* Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory
* ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Ma ...
and reached
Kuwait City as
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
i troops were fleeing, almost a day before allied forces arrived.
People Magazine
''People'' is an American weekly magazine that specializes in celebrity news and human-interest stories. It is published by Dotdash Meredith, a subsidiary of IAC. With a readership of 46.6 million adults in 2009, ''People'' had the lar ...
wrote: "McKeown and his crew survived artillery, minefields and Iraqi snipers to get the best story of the Gulf War."
While at CBS, he was also a correspondent for two prime-time newsmagazines, ''Street Stories'' and ''America Tonight'', and contributed to ''
48 Hours'' and the ''
CBS Evening News
The ''CBS Evening News'' is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The ''CBS Evening News'' is a daily evening broadcast featuring news reports, feature st ...
''.
The Fifth Estate
In January 2005, McKeown challenged a statement made by American conservative polemicist
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter (; born December 8, 1961) is an American conservative media pundit, author, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. She became known as a media pundit in the late 1990s, appearing in print and on cable news as an outspoken critic of ...
during her ''Fifth Estate'' interview. Coulter had asserted that Canada's non-participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq demonstrated that Canada's "loyal friendship" with the United States was weaker than in the past. As part of her broader attempt to compare the Canadian response to the Iraq war with that of Vietnam, Coulter erroneously asserted that "Canada sent troops to Vietnam." McKeown corrected her, "No, actually, Canada didn't send troops to Vietnam."
[Sticks and Stones](_blank)
the fifth estate, CBC Television, aired January 26, 2005 Although no uniformed Canadian troops were involved in war, Canadians did participate through
counterinsurgency
Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionari ...
efforts in South Vietnam and
reconnaissance
In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities.
Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...
for US bombing runs in North Vietnam. Later during an interview on the American
C-SPAN channel, Coulter stated that McKeown did not mention that 10,000 Canadian troops ran across the border to enlist in the United States army. She also went on to call McKeown "a bubble-head, a
Ted Baxter
Ted Baxter is a fictional character on the sitcom ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' (1970–1977). Portrayed by Ted Knight, the Baxter character is a broad parody of a vain, shallow, buffoonish TV personality. Knight's comedic model was actor William ...
." She had said she would get back in touch with the CBC, but has yet to do so.
McKeown has also taken on other conservative pundits, such as
Fox News Channel host
Bill O'Reilly, whom he accused of lying and distorting facts, while trying to convey the news to the American people. McKeown used O'Reilly's reference to what he called the "Paris Business Review" and the billions of dollars France had lost due to the boycott that he had initialized following France's decision not to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. McKeown pointed out that trade between France and the United States actually went up since O'Reilly initialized the boycott and that the Paris Business Review does not even exist.
In 1982, McKeown anchored a special ''Fifth Estate'' report about animal cruelty in Hollywood, focusing on the 1958
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
film ''
White Wilderness'' as well as the television program ''Mutual of Omaha's
Wild Kingdom
''Wild Kingdom'', also known as ''Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom'', is an American documentary television program that features wildlife and nature. It was originally produced from 1963 until 1988, and it was revived in 2002. The show's second ...
''. In the report, McKeown found that the lemming scene was filmed not at the
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
, but at the
Bow River
The Bow River is a river in Alberta, Canada. It begins within the Canadian Rocky Mountains and winds through the Alberta foothills onto the prairies, where it meets the Oldman River, the two then forming the South Saskatchewan River. These w ...
near downtown
Calgary, where the lemmings were forced into the river; in addition, he also discovered that the footage of a
polar bear cub falling down an Arctic ice slope was in actuality filmed in a Calgary film studio. In light of the findings for the report, McKeown asked ''Wild Kingdom'' host
Marlin Perkins
Richard Marlin Perkins (March 28, 1905 – June 14, 1986) was an American zoology, zoologist. He was best known as a host of the television program ''Wild Kingdom, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom'' from 1963 to 1985.
Life and career
Perkin ...
if he had deliberately injured or killed animals while making wildlife films. Perkins, then in his seventies, "firmly asked for the camera to be turned off, then punched a shocked McKeown in the face."
In a November 2016 CBC News article, McKeown, a former CFL player who dealt with concussions during his football career, announced that he would donate his brain to the Canadian Sports Concussion Project.
[ ]
Documentary films
In addition to hosting ''The Fifth Estate'' in the 1980s, McKeown produced, wrote and directed several critically acclaimed documentaries. These include ''The Boys on the Bus'', an intimate portrait of the
Edmonton Oilers
The Edmonton Oilers are a professional ice hockey team based in Edmonton. The Oilers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. They play their home games at Rogers Place, which ...
as they won the 1987
Stanley Cup, ''Les Canadiens'', a history of the
Montreal Canadiens
The Montreal CanadiensEven in English, the French spelling is always used instead of ''Canadians''. The French spelling of ''Montréal'' is also sometimes used in the English media. (french: link=no, Les Canadiens de Montréal), officially ...
, and ''Strangers in a Strange Land'', which depicted the trials and tribulations of a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
movie crew in
China as it shot a feature film about the legendary doctor,
Norman Bethune
Henry Norman Bethune (; March 4, 1890 – November 12, 1939; zh, t=亨利·諾爾曼·白求恩, p=Hēnglì Nuò'ěrmàn Báiqiú'ēn) was a Canadian thoracic surgeon, early advocate of socialized medicine, and member of the Communist Party ...
.
Accolades
He has reported from more than 60 countries and has been recognized with dozens of major journalistic prizes, including two
Emmys
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
- for the Gulf War and ''
Dateline
A dateline is a brief piece of text included in news articles that describes where and when the story was written or filed, though the date is often omitted. In the case of articles reprinted from wire services, the distributing organization i ...
''—two
Geminis, two
Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe f ...
awards, two Gracies, two National Headliner awards and a
National Press Club
Organizations
A press club is an organization for journalists and others professionally engaged in the production and dissemination of news. A press club whose membership is defined by the press of a given country may be known as a National Press ...
award.
References
External links
the fifth estateBob's bio on the fifth estate's website* An outsider's perspective on the divide between liberal and conservative news media in America, focusin
on
Bill O'Reilly,
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter (; born December 8, 1961) is an American conservative media pundit, author, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. She became known as a media pundit in the late 1990s, appearing in print and on cable news as an outspoken critic of ...
, and CNN's
Crossfire
A crossfire (also known as interlocking fire) is a military term for the siting of weapons (often automatic weapons such as assault rifles or sub-machine guns) so that their arcs of fire overlap. This tactic came to prominence in World War I.
S ...
: a full-lengt
documentaryby the fifth estate.
{{DEFAULTSORT:McKeown, Bob
1950 births
Living people
Canadian expatriate journalists in the United States
Canadian football offensive linemen
Players of Canadian football from Ontario
Canadian television reporters and correspondents
CBC Television people
CBS News people
Emmy Award winners
Canadian Screen Award winning journalists
NBC News people
Ottawa Rough Riders players
Sportspeople from Ottawa
Yale Bulldogs football players
Yale University alumni
20th-century Canadian journalists
21st-century Canadian journalists
Members of the Order of Canada
People from Chelsea, Quebec