CNN’s Shaw to retire

As a 12-year-old in 1952, Bernard Shaw already was honing the skills that would make him one of the country’s top journalists.

With his polite demeanor, intelligence and persistence, the scrappy kid from Chicago finessed his way into the Democratic Party convention_a feat he repeated four years later.

On Friday, Shaw announced at the end of CNN’s “Inside Politics,” the daily show he anchors with Judy Woodruff, that he would leave CNN early next year to spend more time with his family and to write an autobiography. As Woodruff paid tribute to Shaw, the chief anchorman for most major stories during CNN’s 20-year history wiped away tears.

“I hate to use the word `retire’ because I am too young to retire,” Shaw, 60, said in a phone interview shortly after he finished his broadcast. “(CNN owner) Ted Turner was very supportive of my decision. I hope to have a relationship with CNN where I can generate and do a few projects for them.”

In the meantime, Shaw says he’s looking forward to cutting back the deadwood from his rose bushes, mulching them and tending to his peonies.

This from the man who captivated a worldwide audience of more than 1 billion viewers with his live coverage from Iraq during Operation Desert Storm?

“It will be a quantum adjustment not going in to work every day,” he conceded. “But I’m a young man still. I’m going to step back from the table and enjoy the view.”

Linda, his wife of 26 years, said in a separate interview: “We’ve been talking about this for a while. I just feel relieved and am very happy for him.”

Laughing, she added, “I’m very happy for me, too. It’ll be nice having him home all the time for a change. He doesn’t have to be a star to be in my show.”

Growing up the youngest of four children in Washington Park on the city’s South Side, Shaw knew from the time he was 13 that he wanted to be a newsman_specifically, a CBS news correspondent like his idols Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. (During a stint in the Marines after high school, Shaw finally met Cronkite_the two ended up talking for more than an hour.)

After working as a newswriter at WFLD-Channel 32 and reporting for Westinghouse Broadcast Co.’s Group W radio in Chicago and Washington, D.C., he fulfilled a lifelong dream.

“CBS News hired me away from Group W,” he says. “Lesley Stahl, Connie Chung and I were the class of 1971. We were all hired there at the same time. It felt great because it was what I had worked for ever since I was a kid.

“I used to call up print and broadcast reporters and ask them all kinds of questions. I wanted to know what I needed to do to succeed. So by the time I was ready to embark on a career, I already knew the road map. There were no surprises.”

As a Dunbar High School student, Shaw said he was “very active.” He was the president of the student council, a member of the public speaking club, played baseball, hosted a morning school radio program and was the announcer for Dunbar’s basketball games.

“I have some great memories of Chicago,” he said. “I used to love to walk around the University of Chicago campus. Garrick Utley’s parents lived there in Hyde Park. I would encounter (the elder) Utley walking around and would have very nice conversations with him. I was never intimidated to talk to people. I’ve always been curious and asked questions.”

That aggressive, straightforward style of journalism is what Shaw says he appreciated in WBBM-Channel 2’s much-respected but low-rated_and ultimately canceled_newscast anchored by Carol Marin.

“It was just a matter of execution that didn’t work out,” Shaw said. “It was an experiment that I was very much interested in. I wish (the station) had put more money into the production value and appearance. They obviously had the journalistic integrity. It was a valiant effort, and I wish it had stayed on the air.”

Though Shaw lives in Washington, D.C., he says he still feels “through and through a Chicagoan.”

“Every time I come home, I rent a car and drive all over Chicago_the North Side, West Side and South Side,” Shaw said. “Since I’m a South Sider, I’m especially interested in the changes going on there. I always drive through the Midway and down the Outer Drive and walk around the U. of C. campus. It’s such a beautiful part of the city.”