Rita Braver is departing CBS News after a 53-year tenure. The CBS News Sunday Morning staple will depart the network at the end of the month.
“Those who know Rita and Sunday Morning realize how essential she’s been to our work,” CBS News Sunday Morning executive producer Rand Morrison wrote in a note to staffers. “Not simply because of her excellent reporting, her keen sense of curiosity about all kinds of things, and her willingness to take on almost any assignment… but also because Rita has always brought professionalism, clarity, and a passion for quality to every story that’s come her way.”
In a 2022 tribute marking her golden anniversary with CBS News, Braver talked about her “50-year love affair” with her longtime home. “It’s had its highs and lows, some exasperating moments, and some too magical to every forget,” she said.
Braver’s began her journalism career at CBS’ New Orleans affiliate WWL-TV. She joined CBS News in 1972 as a news desk staffer in its Washington, D.C. bureau, the first of many jobs she had at the Eye Network.
In 1983, she became its chief law correspondent—a role she held for a decade. Later on, she served as chief White House correspondent from 1993 to 1997, and was a frequent guest and guest host of Face the Nation on Sunday mornings. She has been CBS News Sunday Morning’s chief national correspondent since 1998.
In recent years, Braver has reported on such national issues such as political correctness on college campuses and the resurgence of antisemitism in the United States. She has also led viewers through exhibits of such famed artists Vermeer, Chagall, José Parlá, and Kehinde Wiley.
“My reward for years of jumping out of bed whenever a story broke was the chance to work for Sunday Morning,” Braver said in her 2022 tribute video. “The bonus is that I get to work with some of the smartest, nicest people you can possibly imagine.”
