Bob Abernethy Biography
Bob Abernethy (Robert Gordon Abernethy) is an American media personality and journalist. He is popular for serving in various capacities during his career with NBC News. His is also the co-creator and was executive editor and host of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. The program that aired on PBS for two decades up to 2017.
Bob Abernethy Age
Bob was born on the 5th of November 1927. He is 91 years old as of 2018.
Bob Abernethy Family
Since Abernethy is 91 years old most of her family members are not known. The details regarding his father and mother are not available online. Most of the information regarding his parents are only known to him and his close relatives.
Bob Abernethy Wife
Abernethy is married to Marie Cheremeteff Grove. The couple married during their youthful days. Their wedding happened several years ago and they only celebrate their anniversaries.
Bob Abernethy Children
Bob and Marie are blessed with many children. They have two daughters, one stepdaughter, and three stepsons. They currently reside in Washington, D.C., They have also lived in some parts Jaffrey, New Hampshire. He was brought up as a Christian and he is trying to do the same for his family as they are ordained and staunch members of the United Church of Christ.
Bob Abernethy Career
Abernethy obtained both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. His debut in broadcasting was in 1951, at WBUD radio in Morrisville, Pennsylvania.
After graduating from Princeton in 1952, Abernethy went to work at NBC News. While there he was assigned to the network’s Washington, D.C. bureau in 1953. He worked for at least two years before being transferred to London. He came back to work in Washington where he was assigned to report and anchor network news updates. He hosted a weekly television news magazine for NBC for two years. The update was focused on teenagers and young adults. He also anchored the network’s coverage of the Northeast blackout of 1965 from its Washington news bureau.
In August 1966 NBC transferred him to Los Angeles and assigned him to anchor evening newscasts at its owned-and-operated television station KNBC. He anchored at KNBC until 1970 but remained on the newscasts as an interviewer, special correspondent, and commentator. He also served as moderator of a local public affairs program on the station, KNBC News Conference.
He left L.A after eleven years at KNBC and returned to Washington for NBC in 1977. His agenda of returning back to NBC was to report for the Today Show. In the show, he appeared together with Tom Brokeaw who was a former KNBC colleague.
Abernethy took a study leave from NBC in the year 1984. The purpose of the leave was to enable him to take brief studies at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. He eventually returned back to the network a year later to Washington. His final NBC assignment was that of chief correspondent of the Moscow bureau in 1989.
Bob Abernethy Retirement
Abernethy completed his Moscow assignment in 1994 and subsequently retired from NBC. He spent the next three years developing Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly for PBS. Using his personal background as part of a family of Northern Baptist ministers, his education at Yale Divinity and having covered religion stories for NBC, Abernethy crafted the program to fill a void in objective reporting of faith-based issues in American television.
His show, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly was launched in September 1997, produced by WNET in New York City. It was underwritten primarily by a $5 million grant from the Lilly Endowment. An executive there said it was ”one of the largest amounts our religion program has ever made to a single project.” Unfortunately, the program ended in February 2017 after a nearly 20-year run.