Lester Crystal


Lester Martin "Les" Crystal was an Emmy Award-winning American television news executive best known for being the founding executive producer of the nation’s first hour-long nightly newscast, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and also for being president of NBC News. He joined The NewsHour as executive producer in 1983 and was appointed president of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions in 2005, a position he held until his retirement in 2010. Prior to PBS, Crystal had a 20-year career at NBC, where he was president of NBC News from 1977-79, executive producer of NBC Nightly News, European field producer of NBC Nightly News, and producer of The Huntley-Brinkley Report.
During his broadcast journalism career, he produced U.S. political convention and election night coverage for eight national elections from 1976 to 2004 for both NBC and PBS. He was part of the news delegation for United States President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China and produced NBC News' coverage of that historic visit. His first national Emmy Award was in 1969 for an investigation of teenage drug addiction he produced that aired on The Huntley–Brinkley Report.

Personal life and education

Les Crystal was born to a Jewish family in Duluth, Minnesota on September 13, 1934, and graduated from Duluth East High School in 1952. He earned Bachelors and Masters of Science degrees from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in 1956 and 1957, respectively. He was inducted into the inaugural class of the Medill Hall of Achievement in 1997. He died on June 24, 2020, following a two-and-a-half-year battle with brain cancer.