All: I am sorry to share the sad news that Beth’s father, Ed Fouhy, passed away this morning of cancer.

Ed Fouhy had one of those magical, storied careers in American broadcast news and was among the best of his generation.

He devoted his long and successful life to journalism, to the political process, to public service.

Ed Fouhy was Beth’s dad, and Jonathan’s grandfather. He was also a Marine,  a reporter, a foreign correspondent based in Saigon, a senior producer for Walter Cronkite, a Vice President of both CBS News and ABC news and an executive producer here at NBC News who won five Emmys.

His obituary, penned by Beth in his final hours at the family home on Cape Cod, is here:

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/ed-fouhy-award-winning-journalist-dies-80

He too was a beautiful writer, he held two degrees and an honorary doctorate. He was a fellow at Harvard’s Institute for Politics. And then went on to lead major institutions, as a founding director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism and then as the executive director of the Pew Center on the States.

Ed served as executive producer for the Commission on Presidential Debates and produced the nationally televised debates between presidential candidates Michael Dukakis and George H.W. Bush in 1988 and Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot in 1992.

Beth is so important to us. Her father was important to many of us too.  Ed gave David McCormick his first job in journalism, he was a mentor to Kathy O’Hearn

In 2001, he was interviewed by PBS Newshour about broadcast news. I encourage you all to read it: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media-jan-june01-fouhy_01-17/