Veteran CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, whose tenure spanned three decades and five presidents, has died at the age of 73, the broadcaster’s news division announced today.
The organization cited a close friend, who said Knoller died in Washington, D.C. While a cause of death was not revealed, the longtime reporter had diabetes and was in ill health.
“Friends and colleagues remember Knoller as a legend. For decades, everyone in the White House press corps knew him as the unofficial presidential historian and statistician,” read a statement on CBS News’ social media.
Tom Cibrowski, president and executive editor of CBS News, said of the journalist: “Mark Knoller was the hardest-working and most prolific White House correspondent of a generation. Everyone in America knew his distinctive voice and his up-to-the-minute reporting across eight Presidential administrations.”
As Cibrowski indicated, Knoller kept a meticulous record of the given president’s movements, featuring a daily log comprising speeches, travel and even golf outings, to compensate for the lack of a central database of such information.
“I keep a daily log of everything the president does,” he once explained, per CBS News. “I keep a list of speeches. I keep a list of travel — foreign travel, domestic travel. A list of outings. A list of golf. A list of pardons, vetoes, states that he’s visited, states that he hasn’t visited. Every time he goes on vacation, every visit to Camp David.”
Working long hours into the night as a CBS Radio correspondent after his colleagues had left the press pool, Knoller would generously share his encyclopedic log with those who asked: reporters, historians and even White House aides.
Born Feb. 20, 1952, in Brooklyn, New York, Knoller was set on being a reporter from a young age. After graduating from New York University, he began his career as an intern and copy boy at WNEW Radio in New York, working his way up to weekend reporter. In 1975, he became a reporter at the Associated Press Radio Network, where he remained for over a decade.
In 1988, CBS News producer Susan Zirinsky recruited him as the CBS News Washington Bureau’s assignment editor. However, the seasoned reporter didn’t enjoy sending others to cover news, leading him to eventually transition to his “dream” role as White House correspondent for CBS Radio.
Throughout his tenure, Knoller covered the last year of President George H.W. Bush’s second term; both terms of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama; and the first term of Donald Trump. In his final decade at CBS, as he began experiencing vocal issues, he pivoted from radio work to a then-nascent Twitter (now X), becoming well-known on the platform as a trusted source.
He left CBS in 2020.
