Linda Mason, CBS News trailblazer and producer, dies at 84

Linda Mason, the first female producer of "CBS Evening News" and one of the first women network news producers, has died at 84. CBS News announced the broadcast journalist's death on Wednesday, Oct. 29, noting that Mason died "peacefully" and "surrounded by family." The New York native spent 47 year

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CBS News Senior Vice President Linda Mason speaks during a memorial service for CBS newsman Walter Cronkite at the Lincoln Center in New York on Sept. 9, 2009.

Linda Mason, the first female producer of "CBS Evening News" and one of the first women network news producers, has died at 84.

CBS News announced the broadcast journalist's death on Wednesday, Oct. 29, noting that Mason died "peacefully" and "surrounded by family."

The New York native spent 47 years at CBS News, starting as a desk assistant before going on to work alongside legendary anchors like Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, Charles Kuralt and Connie Chung.

Mason worked as a senior producer for "CBS Evening News" and an executive producer for "CBS Evening News" and the network's documentary series, "CBS Reports." She also served as CBS News' vice president of public affairs and senior vice president of its standards department, where

she was integral to internal restructuring, including following the 2000 election night Florida recount debacle.

Linda Mason attends The International Women's Media Foundation's 2019 Courage in Journalism Awards at Cipriani 42nd Street on Oct. 30, 2019, in New York City.

During her tenure, Mason covered President Ronald Reagan's first trip to the Soviet Union in 1988 and the unrest in China that led to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.

Before CBS News, she worked as a news writer at CBS' New York City station WCBS, and as a reporter for the Providence Journal in Rhode Island, now part of the USA TODAY Network.

Mason won 13 Emmy Awards, three Peabody Awards, Brown University's prestigious William Rogers Award and the grand prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards over the course of her career.

She released her memoir "Speak Up: Breaking the Glass Ceiling at CBS News," with a foreword by Chung, in 2023.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Linda Mason, CBS News trailblazer and producer, dies at 84