Robert McNamara

Bob McNamara has covered many of the world’s biggest stories for CBS News for 31 years.

Before retirement, Bob had been based in the Dallas bureau since 1995.   Before that, he worked out of the Denver bureau (1984-95).  Among the many major stories Bob has covered for CBS News are the Oklahoma City bombing, the crash of TWA Flight 800; the Paducah, Ky., Jonesboro, Ark., Columbine and Red Lake, Minnesota school shootings; the Los Angeles riots; Hurricanes Andrew, Hugo and Ivan; and the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.

McNamara was based in the Chicago bureau (1979-84) and spent five years overseas in London (1977-79) and Bonn (1975-77).  Bob joined CBS News in 1974 as a general assignment reporter based in New York and was named a correspondent a year later. 

His international reporting experience includes filing reports from more than 40 countries.  In addition to covering the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the funeral of Pope Paul VI, among many major stories, he spent the majority of two years–often in extremely dangerous conditions–covering the Iranian revolution and the fall of the Shah. 

Bob has also filed numerous reports on terrorism in West Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland and covered national elections in many European countries.  While based in New York in the mid-1970s, he often anchored “CBS News on the Hour” broadcasts on the CBS Radio Network

McNamara has received five Emmy Awards and was a member of the team of CBS News correspondents that received an Overseas Press Club Award in 1978 for “best radio spot news reporting from abroad” for coverage of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s trip to Israel.

Prior to joining CBS News, he was a reporter, anchor and political correspondent for WCCO-TV, the CBS owned station in Minneapolis (1968-74).  Before that, Bob was a news reporter and anchor for KCRG-TV and Radio in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1967-68).  He began his broadcast journalism career in 1965 as a copy boy for WBBM-TV, the CBS owned station in Chicago.

Bob graduated from Columbia College Chicago in 1966.  He and his wife, Jane, reside in Phoenix, AZ.