Longtime CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller has died at the age of 73.
He died in Washington, D.C., according to a close friend. The cause of death was not disclosed, but he suffered from diabetes and had been in ill health.
Knoller was, to put it simply, a legend. For decades, everyone in the White House press corps knew him as the unofficial presidential historian and statistician.
His frustration over the lack of a central database of daily presidential actions inspired him to take upon himself the enormous burden of keeping meticulous records of every presidential act, movement, and utterance, single-handedly filling an immense void in American history.
As he once put it: “I keep a daily log of everything the president does. I keep a list of speeches. I keep a list of travel – foreign travel, domestic travel. A list of outings. A list of golf. A list of pardons, vetoes, states that he’s visited, states that he hasn’t visited. Every time he goes on vacation, every visit to Camp David.”
Mark Knoller of CBS News, center, waits for the start of the daily press briefing by White House press secretary Jay Carney at the White House in Washington, D.C.,