Leroy Sievers (June 16, 1955 – August 15, 2008) was a journalist who won 12 national news
Emmy Award
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 ...
s, two
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
s, and two
Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award
Alfred may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
*'' Alfred J. Kwak'', Dutch-German-Japanese anime television series
* ''Alfred'' (Arne opera), a 1740 masque by Thomas Arne
* ''Alfred'' (Dvořák), an 1870 opera by Antonín Dvořák
*"Alfred (Interl ...
s.
He was a commentator for
National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
, served as a bureau chief for
CBS news, served as an executive producer for the
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
program ''
Nightline
''Nightline'' (or ''ABC News Nightline'') is ABC News' late-night television news program broadcast on ABC in the United States with a franchised formula to other networks and stations elsewhere in the world. Created by Roone Arledge, the progra ...
'', and covered a variety of global conflicts as a war correspondent. Sievers was also part of the
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...
program entitled ''Living with Cancer'', hosted by his friend
Ted Koppel. This show was taped at the Discovery Channel Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland on May 6, 2007, and featured other
cancer survivor
A cancer survivor is a person with cancer of any type who is still living. Whether a person becomes a survivor at the time of diagnosis or after completing treatment, whether people who are actively dying are considered survivors, and whether ...
s, including
Elizabeth Edwards
Mary Elizabeth Anania Edwards (July 3, 1949 – December 7, 2010) was an American attorney, author, and health care activist. She was married to John Edwards, the former U.S. Senator from North Carolina who was the 2004 United States Democrati ...
and
Lance Armstrong.
Born in
San Marino, California
San Marino is a residential city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It was incorporated on April 25, 1913. At the 2010 census the population was 13,147. The city is one of the wealthiest places in the nation in terms of househol ...
, Sievers attended
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
but transferred to the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, where he finished his undergraduate degree.
He was married to Laurie Singer, a producer at
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...
.
Cancer
Sievers kept a
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
and
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...
, called My Cancer, on the NPR website; the blog dealt with his struggle with metastatic
colon cancer
Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel mo ...
, with which he was diagnosed in 2006. The blog consists of Sievers's thoughts on his illness, as well as updates on his treatment and any scans and tests he underwent. His blog developed a large community of those currently diagnosed with cancer and cancer survivors, as well as their families and loved ones, many of whom who regularly commented on Sievers's posts, often offering him messages of love, support, and gratitude for having so openly shared his experiences on his blog.
On June 9, 2008, Sievers announced that his latest scans had found new tumors in his brain, shoulder blades, liver, pelvis and lungs. Leroy planned to target the tumors in his brain and pelvis first, although he appeared to be running out of treatment options.
On August 12, 2008, Sievers wrote on his blog that he and his wife had decided to pursue hospice care, which would allow others to help manage what remained of his life. Sievers died August 15, 2008.
Sources
''The New York Times''
References
External links
Leroy Sievers' MyCancer BlogMore about Leroy Sievers"Journalist, 'My Cancer' Blogger Leroy Sievers Dies"
American television news producers
American war correspondents
Deaths from colorectal cancer
1955 births
2008 deaths
People from San Marino, California
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
Television producers from California
{{US-journalist-1950s-stub