BETHESDA, Md., June 12 (UPI) -- Neil MacNeil, one of television's first congressional correspondents, has died in Bethesda, Md., at age 85.
MacNeil died Saturday of lung cancer, his daughter Tara MacNeil Veitch, said.
MacNeil, who covered Congress for Time magazine through seven presidential administrations, began his journalistic career at The New York Times, where his father, also named Neil MacNeil, was an assistant night managing editor.
He moved to Washington in 1949 to report on Congress for United Press, joined Time in 1958 and stayed until retirement in 1987.
MacNeil was an expert on the U.S. House. His 1963 book about its workings and its history, "Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives," was often cited as required reading for new reporters, The New York Times said.
In 1964, MacNeil was among pioneering television congressional reporters with weekly news and comment on WETA, a public television station in Washington.
His show ran for three years.
Neil MacNeil was born in the Bronx in New York on Jan. 3, 1923, and graduated from Harvard in 1948. In addition to his daughter, who lives in London, he is survived by four other children.
