Richard M. Cohen, an outspoken and award-winning tv information producer whose profession was finally derailed by the ravages of a number of sclerosis, which he wrote about in a best-selling memoir, died on Dec. 24 in Sleepy Hole, N.Y., a village in Westchester County. He was 76.
His spouse, the previous “Right this moment” present host Meredith Vieira, stated his demise, in a hospital, was attributable to acute respiratory failure.
Mr. Cohen spent greater than 20 years within the information enterprise, working with luminaries like Ted Koppel at ABC and Walter Cronkite and Dan Relatively at CBS. However he tackled a unique topic when he wrote a memoir — and articles for HuffPost, The New York Occasions and different shops — about coping with M.S., a degenerative illness of the central nervous system.
Mr. Cohen was identified with M.S. in 1973, when he was 25 and serving to to create a documentary for PBS concerning the politics of incapacity.
Regardless of diminishing eyesight, which became authorized blindness, and worsening steadiness, which brought about falls that made him seem inebriated to the uninformed, he labored into the mid-Nineties as a producer for CBS Information, CNN, PBS (once more) and FX.
“Richard was a person of vibrant good humor and glowing intelligence,” Mr. Koppel wrote in an e-mail. “I’m certain that his many diseases brought about him greater than the occasional bout of despair, however he by no means shared that with me.”
One in every of Mr. Cohen’s methods to deal with M.S. — and to dwell life as he selected — was denial. He instructed only a few folks, together with the CBS Information govt who employed him in 1979, for worry that he could be seen as unfit. He realized years later from that govt that if he had been sincere about his situation, he wouldn’t have been employed.
In 2004, a few decade after his producing profession ended, he revealed what he known as a “reluctant memoir,” “Blindsided: Lifting a Life Above Sickness,” to recount how his once-vigorous life was circumscribed by M.S. and two bouts of colon most cancers.
“Welcome to my world,” Mr. Cohen wrote within the e-book, which spent a number of weeks on The Occasions’s best-seller record, “the place I carry round desires, a couple of ailments, and the willpower to dwell life my manner. This e-book is my day by day dialog with myself, a chronicle of the struggles in that unique place simply north of the neck.”
Ms. Vieira stated in an interview that Mr. Cohen’s proper facet had turn into so immobilized by M.S. that he typed “Blindsided,” and subsequent books, solely together with his non-dominant left hand, and together with his face near the pc display.
“He had plenty of willpower and so much to say,” she stated.
His second e-book, “Robust on the Damaged Locations: Voices of Sickness, a Refrain of Hope” (2008), supplied him a long way from his personal maladies. In that e-book, he profiled 5 folks with continual diseases: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s illness; non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; Crohn’s illness; muscular dystrophy; and bipolar illness.
Richard Merrill Cohen was born on Feb. 14, 1948, in Manhattan. His father, Benjamin, was a physician; his mom, Theresa (Beitzer) Cohen, was a nurse. His father and paternal grandmother additionally had M.S.
Mr. Cohen was a “ne’er-do-well” in highschool, he wrote in “Blindsided,” and was thrown off athletic groups, ejected from courses and suspended. In a single spectacular prank, he and a few mates stole the electrical chair from an deserted jail; his father made him return it the following day.
His focus sharpened at Simpson School, in Indianola, Iowa, close to Des Moines, the place he was an antiwar activist. He was impressed to turn into a broadcast journalist after speaking with Peter Jennings, then an ABC Information correspondent, when he visited the campus.
After graduating in 1970 with a bachelor’s diploma in historical past and political science, Mr. Cohen was employed at ABC Information as an assistant to the producer of the Sunday public affairs program “Points and Solutions.” In 1972 he was the ground producer for Mr. Koppel on the Democratic and Republican presidential conventions.
In 1973, he joined the PBS program “America ‘73,” the place he helped produce the documentary about disabilities. Coincidentally, it was whereas at PBS that he started to expertise signs that led to a neurologist’s analysis of M.S.
“I dropped a coffeepot for no motive,” he instructed Yahoo in 2019. “I fell off a curb for no motive. I seen a little bit numbness in my leg.”
“It hit my eyesight pretty shortly,” he continued, “however aside from that, I used to be very lively bodily and I believed I used to be actually beating it. I used to be residing in denial.”
He obtained a grasp’s diploma from the Columbia College Journalism Faculty in 1976, then continued to work at PBS after being turned down for work at “NBC Nightly Information” as a result of he admitted to having M.S.
In 1979, he joined CBS Information as a producer. He labored for Mr. Cronkite and Mr. Relatively and traveled for the “CBS Night Information” to scorching spots in Poland, Lebanon and El Salvador, regardless of his deteriorating situation.
“He was an authentic,” Andrew Heyward, a former “Night Information” senior producer who later grew to become president of CBS Information, stated in an interview. “There was a sort of mould at CBS the place folks acted inside unstated strictures, however he wasn’t certain by these conventions. He was outspoken, charming, and had an absent-minded-professor high quality that individuals discovered endearing.”
Mr. Cohen’s rebelliousness surfaced publicly in opinion essays for The Occasions. In 1987 (below Mr. Relatively’s byline however written collectively), after cutbacks at CBS Information, the article warned that the division would possibly fall into mediocrity below the community’s new proprietor and chief govt, Laurence A. Tisch. The piece angered Mr. Tisch and Howard Stringer, the president of CBS Information.
Later that 12 months, when Mr. Cohen was the “Night Information” producer accountable for international information, he wrote (this time below his personal title) that Western information shops ought to go away South Africa due to the strict limitations positioned on reporting by the apartheid state. The federal government sought assurances from CBS that Mr. Cohen had spoken for himself, not the community.
Extra necessary, he criticized Mr. Relatively for the best way he dealt with a hostile, contentious dwell interview on the “Night Information” with Vice President George Bush on Jan. 25, 1988, early within the presidential marketing campaign. Mr. Relatively aggressively pressed the vp on his function within the Iran-contra scandal; the Bush marketing campaign accused CBS of misrepresenting the phrases of the interview.
“Look, I feel Dan made errors,” Mr. Cohen instructed The Des Moines Register. “I feel his posture was in all probability too aggressive, however that’s not the difficulty.” He added: “We took a heavy hit. I feel it was very damaging to us. To Dan. To our credibility.”
About six weeks later, CBS Information ousted Mr. Cohen because the senior “Night Information” producer for political protection. He refused one other task and left the community.
Whereas at CBS, Mr. Cohen received two Emmys for experiences for the “Night Information.” He received a 3rd in 1989 after returning to PBS, for a phase of “The Public Thoughts With Invoice Moyers” in 1989 concerning the energy of pictures on information, politics and elections. His phase was included in a four-part entry that received “The Public Thoughts” a Peabody Award.
After Mr. Cohen moved to CNN, he produced a documentary in 1992 about Invoice Clinton, throughout his profitable run for the presidency. He completed his producing profession within the mid-Nineties at FX.
Along with Ms. Vieira, Mr. Cohen is survived by their daughter, Lily Cohen; their sons, Gabe and Ben; a grandson; his brother, Bernard; and his sister, Terrie Cohen.
Mr. Cohen didn’t need folks both to pity him or to reward him for the best way he handled a number of sclerosis.
“Those that battle critical illness every day and refuse to turn into victims are incessantly instructed we encourage the chronically wholesome,” he wrote in HuffPost in 2014. He added: “Enable me to set the report straight. There are not any heroes, solely survivors. There are not any medals or advantage badges dangling from our chests.”