Sander Vanocur (; born Alexander Vinocur, January 8, 1928 – September 16, 2019)
Retrieved September 17, 2019 was an American television journalist who focused on U.S. national electoral politics.
Life and career
Vanocur was born in
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
, the son of Rose (Millman) and Louis Vinocur, a lawyer. His family was of
Russian Jewish
The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...
descent. Vanocur moved to
Peoria, Illinois
Peoria ( ) is the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and the largest city on the Illinois River. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 113,150. It is the principal city of the Peoria Metropolitan Area in Centr ...
when he was twelve years old.
After attending
Western Military Academy
Western Military Academy was a private military preparatory school located in Alton, Illinois, United States. It operated from 1879 to 1971. The campus is part of the National Register of Historic Places District (ID.78001167). The school motto wa ...
in
Alton, Illinois
Alton ( ) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 census. It is a part of the River Bend area in the Metro-East region of the G ...
,
he earned a
bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six y ...
in
political science from the
Northwestern University School of Speech (1950) and studied at the
London School of Economics (1951–52). He became an intelligence officer in the
United States Army for two years with service in Austria and Berlin, and achieved the rank of first lieutenant. After service in the army, he began his journalism career as a reporter on the London staff of ''
The Manchester Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the G ...
'' and also did general reporting for ''
The New York Times''.
Broadcast journalism career
Described as "one of the country's most prominent political reporters during the 1960s," Vanocur served as White House correspondent and national political correspondent for
NBC News in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was one of the questioners at the first of the
Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960, as well as one of NBC's "four horsemen," its floor reporters at the political conventions in the 1960s—the other three were
John Chancellor
John William Chancellor (July 14, 1927 – July 12, 1996) was an American journalist who spent most of his career with NBC News. He is considered a pioneer in TV news. He served as anchor of the ''NBC Nightly News'' from 1970 to 1982 and continu ...
,
Frank McGee, and
Edwin Newman
Edwin Harold Newman (January 25, 1919 – August 13, 2010) was an American newscaster, journalist, and author. After beginning his career with the wire services and serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Newman worked in radio for CBS New ...
. While White House correspondent during the Kennedy administration, Vanocur was one of the first reporters to publicly ask Kennedy to justify the failure of the
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion (, sometimes called ''Invasión de Playa Girón'' or ''Batalla de Playa Girón'' after the Playa Girón) was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles, covertly f ...
. Vanocur also dubbed Kennedy's coterie the "Irish mafia."
Later, Vanocur covered the
1968 United States presidential election
The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, former vice president Richard Nixon, defeated the Democratic nominee, incumbent vice preside ...
in which
United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. Vanocur, who had interviewed Kennedy on June 4, 1968, shortly before the Democratic candidate was shot, reported on the incident from
The Ambassador Hotel in
Los Angeles, California, for the entire night. Kennedy died the following day at
Good Samaritan Hospital. On the final night of the
1968 Republican National Convention
The 1968 Republican National Convention was held at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, Dade County, Florida, from August 5 to August 8, 1968, to select the party's nominee in the general election. It nominated former Vice Preside ...
in
Miami Beach, during a convention-wrapping Thursday night round-table discussion with his fellow NBC floor reporters in the vacated folding chairs on the convention hall floor, Vanocur suggested that the Republicans had "kissed off the black vote" in 1968, a comment which caused a media uproar in the ensuing week.
Vanocur also served as host of ''First Tuesday'', a monthly newsmagazine that premiered in 1969 and continued after Vanocur left the network. His work at NBC earned him a place on the Nixon administration's
"enemies list".
After leaving NBC in 1971, Vanocur worked for PBS and as a television writer for ''
The Washington Post''. He joined ABC News in 1977 and worked there until 1991, holding various positions, including chief diplomatic
correspondent
A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locati ...
, senior correspondent in
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South Am ...
, and anchor for ''Business World'', the first regularly scheduled weekly business program. He covered the 1997, 1998, and 1999
World Economic Summits and was chief overview correspondent during the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. In 1984, Vanocur moderated the vice presidential debate between incumbent
George H. W. Bush and Congresswoman
Geraldine Ferraro
Geraldine Anne Ferraro (August 26, 1935 March 26, 2011) was an American politician, diplomat, and attorney. She served in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 1985, and was the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee ...
. He was also one of the questioners in the 1992 presidential debate.
Other work
Vanocur played fictional versions of himself as a broadcast journalist in theatrical films ''
The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight'' (1971), ''
Raise the Titanic
''Raise the Titanic!'' is a 1976 adventure novel by Clive Cussler, published in the United States by the Viking Press. It tells the story of efforts to bring the remains of the ill-fated ocean liner RMS ''Titanic'' to the surface of the Atlantic ...
'' (1980), ''
Dave Dave may refer to:
Film, television, and theater
* ''Dave'' (film), a 1993 film starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver
* ''Dave'' (musical), a 2018 stage musical adaptation of the film
* Dave (TV channel), a digital television channel in the ...
'' (1993), and ''
Street Fighter
, commonly abbreviated as ''SF'' or スト (''Suto''), is a Japanese media franchise centered on a series of fighting
Combat ( French for ''fight'') is a purposeful violent conflict meant to physically harm or kill the opposition. Combat may ...
'' (1994). He also appeared as himself in the
TV movie
A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...
s ''
Without Warning'' (1994) and ''
Weapons of Mass Distraction
''Weapons of Mass Distraction'' is a 1997 television film directed by Stephen Surjik and written by Larry Gelbart, about two media moguls and their fight over ownership of a professional American football team. The film starred Gabriel Byrne and ...
'' (1997).
Vanocur served as
television presenter in two of the
History Channel's primetime series: ''Movies in Time'' and ''History's Business''.
Vanocur provided narration and further historical material for an expanded
audiobook
An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements.
Spoken audio has been available in sc ...
release of
the Nixon-Kennedy presidential debates.
Family
Vanocur married his first wife, fashion designer Edith Pick, on March 3, 1956, and they had two sons, Nicholas and
Christopher Vanocur. Christopher is a television news reporter and a former news anchor in the
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, t ...
television market. After Edith's death in April, 1975, Vanocur married Virginia Backus Wood on December 19, 1975. He was survived by Wood and a stepdaughter.
In popular culture
Vanocur was parodied by
Bob Elliott as national newscaster Sandy Van Andy in another 1971
comedy film ''
Cold Turkey
"Cold turkey" refers to the abrupt cessation of a substance dependence and the resulting unpleasant experience, as opposed to gradually easing the process through reduction over time or by using replacement medication.
Sudden withdrawal from dru ...
''.
van Heerden, Bill. ''Film and Television In-Jokes: Nearly 2,000 Intentional References, Parodies, Allusions, Personal Touches, Cameos, Spoofs and Homages''. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1998.
Retrieved February 18, 2020
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanocur, Sander
1928 births
2019 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
ABC News personalities
Journalists from Ohio
Alumni of the London School of Economics
American newspaper reporters and correspondents
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
American television reporters and correspondents
Duke University faculty
NBC News people
Northwestern University alumni
The New York Times writers
Military personnel from Cleveland
United States Army officers