New York -- Former ABC News "Nightline" executive producer Leroy Sievers, whose struggle with cancer led him to reach a wide audience with his National Public Radio commentary and blog, died Saturday at his home in Maryland. He was 53.
Sievers was a nationally accomplished journalist for ABC News and CBS News, executive producer of "Nightline" for four years and with former host Ted Koppel when he was embedded during the Iraq war in 2003. He also produced "The Fallen," the controversial "Nightline" tribute to the war dead.
But it was his two bouts with cancer that were his struggle and triumph. He was first diagnosed with colon cancer in 2001. Four years later, the cancer returned as a brain tumor, lung cancer and, in 2006, in his spine. He went behind the microphone to detail his chemotherapy treatment for National Public Radio audiences in 2006, and began the "My Cancer" blog that instantly became one of NPR's best-known features. Thousands read and contributed to the blog, which chronicled his life with cancer. Many said that it touched their lives or their loved ones' lives.
He also did commentaries for NPR's "Morning Edition" about living with cancer; he also did a podcast.
"Cancer was not in Leroy's plans. But he turned his battle with cancer into the most dramatic, the most moving and the most important story of his life," Koppel wrote in a statement released by NPR. Koppel said that Sievers inspired courage by what he wrote and who he was: "Larger than life while he walked among us, and destined to be even larger in our memories." Sievers was profiled by his friend Koppel in a Discovery documentary about cancer in 2007.
He had several surgeries but after the cancer spread to his liver and elsewhere two months ago, he decided to stop treatment.
Not long ago, Sievers described the blog as a "rest stop."
"But if I've learned anything over the last two years, it's that life with cancer is tough," he wrote. "I've learned something far more important, too. No matter what happens, we're all in this together. None of us will walk this road alone."
In his 24-year career with ABC and CBS, he worked at "Nightline" and was a bureau chief for CBS News. He won 12 national Emmys, two Peabodys and other awards.
He is survived by his wife, Laurie Singer.
Sievers was a nationally accomplished journalist for ABC News and CBS News, executive producer of "Nightline" for four years and with former host Ted Koppel when he was embedded during the Iraq war in 2003. He also produced "The Fallen," the controversial "Nightline" tribute to the war dead.
But it was his two bouts with cancer that were his struggle and triumph. He was first diagnosed with colon cancer in 2001. Four years later, the cancer returned as a brain tumor, lung cancer and, in 2006, in his spine. He went behind the microphone to detail his chemotherapy treatment for National Public Radio audiences in 2006, and began the "My Cancer" blog that instantly became one of NPR's best-known features. Thousands read and contributed to the blog, which chronicled his life with cancer. Many said that it touched their lives or their loved ones' lives.
He also did commentaries for NPR's "Morning Edition" about living with cancer; he also did a podcast.
"Cancer was not in Leroy's plans. But he turned his battle with cancer into the most dramatic, the most moving and the most important story of his life," Koppel wrote in a statement released by NPR. Koppel said that Sievers inspired courage by what he wrote and who he was: "Larger than life while he walked among us, and destined to be even larger in our memories." Sievers was profiled by his friend Koppel in a Discovery documentary about cancer in 2007.
He had several surgeries but after the cancer spread to his liver and elsewhere two months ago, he decided to stop treatment.
Not long ago, Sievers described the blog as a "rest stop."
"But if I've learned anything over the last two years, it's that life with cancer is tough," he wrote. "I've learned something far more important, too. No matter what happens, we're all in this together. None of us will walk this road alone."
In his 24-year career with ABC and CBS, he worked at "Nightline" and was a bureau chief for CBS News. He won 12 national Emmys, two Peabodys and other awards.
He is survived by his wife, Laurie Singer.
- 8/17/2008
- by By Paul J. Gough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
WASHINGTON -- At a party Wednesday night honoring his 42 years at ABC News, Ted Koppel brought together the past and the future of Nightline on stage with him. The party at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts brought together several hundred people from Koppel's past -- stars in the news business such as Barbara Walters, Dan Rather, Tim Russert and Charlie Gibson -- as well as current and former interns, producers and directors of ABC News' signature late-night program. Koppel formed a kind of bridge between the past and the future for the show, asking four Nightline executive producers -- William Lord, Rick Kaplan, Tom Bettag and Leroy Sievers -- to join him on the podium. Each got a round of applause.
- 11/17/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
NEW YORK -- ABC News' Nightline on Wednesday was handed the Overseas Press Club's David Kaplan Award for spot news reporting for the program's Spotlight on Darfur. The program focused on the crisis in Darfur, a section of Sudan, that has cost thousands of lives and made refugees of millions of people. The Overseas Press Club Award names host Ted Koppel, correspondent David Wright, former executive producer Leroy Sievers, camera operator Rick Bennet and producer-editor Almin Karamehmedovic. It was Koppel's 10th award from the Overseas Press Club, making him the most honored journalist in OPC's history. With this year's Kaplan Award, he passes former CBS News correspondent Edward R. Murrow, the broadcast journalism pioneer who won nine in his career. Koppel won his first OPC award in 1970 when he was ABC News' Hong Kong bureau chief.
- 4/28/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
NEW YORK -- After 25 years and more than 6,000 broadcasts, Nightline anchor Ted Koppel will leave the show and ABC News when his contract ends Dec. 4. Koppel and his longtime executive producer, Tom Bettag, turned down ABC's request to helm what could become an hourlong Nightline and didn't want to move to ABC's This Week, either. Bettag's contract runs out within a few days of Koppel's; the two plan to continue their 14-year partnership in an as-yet-undetermined place. Koppel's departure from ABC after 42 years wasn't too much of a surprise after ABC's attempt to lure David Letterman to the network three years ago and, more recently, ABC News' consideration of a younger, hipper Nightline. Bettag returned to the show late last year after the departure of Leroy Sievers. But ABC News and Bettag gave no indication of anything but an amicable split.
ABC News' Nightline will pay tribute to the more than 500 U.S. soldiers killed in action in Iraq with The Fallen, a special edition of the program to air Friday in Nightline's regular 11:35 p.m. slot. The special, which will be simulcast live on the ABC News Jumbotron in New York's Times Square, will feature one by one the photographs of all fallen servicemen and women with anchor Ted Koppel reading their names aloud. ABC News Radio also will air excerpts of the program. " 'The Fallen' is our way of reminding our viewers -- whether they agree with the war or not -- that beyond the casualty numbers, these men and women are serving in Iraq in our names and that those who have been killed have names and faces," executive producer Leroy Sievers said. The program's team had considered airing the special in conjunction with Memorial Day but opted to run it a month earlier. "Memorial Day might have been the most logical occasion on which to do this program, but we felt that the impact would actually be greater on a day when the entire nation is not focused on its war dead," Koppel said.
- 4/28/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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