Ken Bode, a bearded, bearded former political operative and television correspondent with a PhD. In politics, he hosted the popular PBS program “Washington Week in Review” in the 1990s and died Thursday in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was 83 years old.
His death at the care center was confirmed by his daughters, Matilda and Josie Board, who stated that the cause had not been identified.
Since 1994, Bode (pronounced BO-dee) has combined compatibility and knowledge in leading discussions among reporters on Friday night on the issue of the day coming out of Washington. His role, as he saw, was “to bring people who really report the news, empty their notebooks, and provide perspective rather than discussing with each other,” he said. Told the Washington Post in 1999.
As the host of a program now known as “Washington Week,” he took over Paul Duke, who had held a polite Talking Heads roundtable for 20 years, and was a former NBC News correspondent who died in 2016 at the age of 61. It preceded Gwen Ifil. Debuted in 1967, is billed as the longest-running prime time news and public relations program on television. The current host is Yami Chair Rusyndor.
Even his beard was controversial when Mr. Board took over, as the program’s loyal and generally older viewers were tied to brass in the 1990s. He introduced a video-recorded segment and a remote interview with correspondents, adding more diversity to the press.
He also took more freedom in language than his predecessor.
After an interview with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post on President Bill Clinton’s economic policy, Mr. Board said the president’s imminent visit to Oxford in the United Kingdom was “a less publicized organ of the president.” : His brain. “He described the Supreme Court vacancies as making up” one-third to one-ninth of the government. “
Still, Dalton Delan, the newly created Executive Vice President of WETA in Washington, who continues to produce the program, wanted to revitalize the format. He suggested replacing Mr. Board with Mr. Ifil, including college journalists, surprise guests, and street interviews (she said she declined the offer first) — jumping Mr. Board. Or a change that urged me not to push very gently from the host’s chair in 1999.
Kenneth Adlam Bode was born on March 30, 1939 in Chicago and grew up in Hawarden, Iowa. His father, George, owned a dairy farm and later ran a dry cleaning business. His mother, June (Adrum) Board, kept the books.
Mr. Board, the first family member to enroll in college, graduated in 1961 with a degree in Philosophy and Government at the University of South Dakota. Later, he earned a PhD in Political Science from the University of North Carolina and was active there. In the citizenship movement.
He was drawn to liberal politics after briefly teaching at Michigan State University and Binghamton University in New York.
In 1968, Mr. Board participated in the presidential campaign for Senators Eugene McCarthy and George S. McGovern. He became the head of research for the Democratic Commission, led by McGovern and Congressman Donald M. Fraser of Minnesota, who advocated reforming the process of selecting representatives for the 1972 Democratic National Convention. He led a liberal organization, later called the Political Reform Center.
His marriage to Linda Yarrow ended with a divorce. In 1975, he married Margohauf, a high school socialist teacher who wrote and designed materials for children with learning disabilities. He survives with her, her brothers and two grandchildren, in addition to her daughters.
After working in politics, Mr. Board began writing for The New Republic in the early 1970s and became its political editor. He moved to NBC News in 1979 and was encouraged by his college friend Tom Brokaw, a network newsman, who eventually became a national political correspondent for the network. In that role, he hosted the weekly segment of the “Today” show, “Bode’s Journal,” and, among other issues, as his longtime producer Jim Connor recalled in an interview, among others. We investigated voting infringement, racism, and abuse of sponsorship.
Mr. Board left the network ten years later and taught at DePauw University in Indiana, where he founded the Contemporary Media Center. While at Depot, from 1989 to 1998, he went to Washington to host the “Washington Week in Review” and wrote the Emmy Award-winning CNN documentary “The Public Heart of George Bush” (1992). I did.
Since 1998, he has been the Dean of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University for three years and was a professor until 2004.
Mr. Board said he had retired from broadcasting journalism for family reasons. “I was raising children from 100 airports a year,” he said. As he told the New York Times in 1999, “I knew my problem was doing the best job, but I had one chance to become a father and I’ve lost it. “