Robert Wussler
American journalist (1936-2010)
Robert J. Wussler (September 8, 1936 – June 5, 2010) was a journalist, executive, and co-founder of CNN.
Early life and education
Wussler was born in Newark, New Jersey and attended Seton Hall Preparatory School, then Seton Hall University.
Career
Wussler began his career at CBS in 1957, working in the mailroom. He rose through the ranks to become the youngest president of the network at the age of 40.
Within weeks after joining CBS in 1957, Wussler became a production assistant, eventually rising to be an executive producer and a director of special events. From 1972 until 1974, Wussler served as the general manager of CBS-owned WBBM-TV in Chicago. He returned to CBS headquarters in New York in 1974 as vice president of CBS Sports. He then became the head of the network in 1976. He was forced to leave CBS on the eve of a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) meeting to determine whether to penalize the network for its series of specially promoted tennis matches billed as "winner take all" when, in fact, the players had been paid large fees whether they won or lost. The FCC went on to find that CBS had deliberately misled the public in connection with the players' fees. In July 1978, the FCC announced that it would punish the network by shortening the length of a license renewal for one of the five television stations that CBS owned.
“Robert Wussler” enters the record as american journalist (1936-2010). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Robert, Wussler and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Robert Wussler” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Robert, Wussler and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7351281. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 2010, 1957 and 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert Wussler” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.