Ed Fouhy, Emmy Award-winning network news executive, dead at age 80

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Ed Fouhy, a longtime television news executive whose Emmy Award-winning career ranged from producing Walter Cronkite’s evening broadcasts to twice overseeing presidential debates, has died.

Fouhy died Wednesday at a nursing home in Chatham, Massachusetts, according to his daughter Beth Fouhy, a former Associated Press reporter and now a senior editor at MSNBC. Ed Fouhy was 80 and died from complications relating to cancer.

A Boston native who attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Boston University’s College of Communications, Fouhy was an executive at all three networks, starting as producer of “CBS Morning News” in 1966. He won five Emmys and covered stories worldwide, whether travelling with Cronkite for President Nixon’s 1972 trip to Moscow or producing the 1988 and 1992 presidential debates and heading the Commission on Presidential Debates. He was Washington producer for the “CBS Evening News” with Cronkite from 1969-74, was a producer for NBC News from 1974-77 and Washington bureau chief for ABC News from 1982-1985.

In recent years, he was active with Pew Charitable Trusts and was an adviser for Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2012 campaign. He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Barbara; sister Nan Fouhy; two children and one grandchild.