Schorr was notable for staying a reporter and commentator his entire career – he never stepped into the revolving door between politics and the press. However in the late 1970s he did accept a brief appointment as Regents Professor of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley while writing a syndicated newspaper column, according to his NPR biography.
Schorr became the story twice in his career. His reports for CBS News about the Nixon administration’s failings enraged the president. And thus during the Watergate hearings in 1973, Schorr found himself on television one night to reveal Nixon’s enemies list. Reading the list on the air for the first time, Schorr was surprised to find his own name at number 17. “I remember that my first thought was that I must go on reading without any pause, or gasp,” Schorr wrote in his 1977 book “clearing the Air.” He won three Emmys for his Watergate coverage.
He was also at the center of developments while covering CIA and FBI scandals for CBS. In February 1976 the House of Representatives voted to suppress the final report of its intelligence investigating committee. Schorr arranged for the publication of an advance copy he had obtained in exchange for a donation to a journalism group. As a result, he was suspended by CBS and investigated by the House Ethics Committee.
Threatened with a contempt citation if he did not reveal his source, Schorr said, “to betray a source would mean to dry up many future sources for many future reporters…. It would mean betraying myself, my career, and my life.”
