‘Face the Nation’ host Bob Schieffer is ready for retirement

WASHINGTON—At 78, Bob Schieffer is entitled to reminisce about the "good old days" of reporting. He believes young people coming into the business can also learn from them.

Schieffer will host CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday for the last time after 24 years. He's retiring from a journalism career that began at 20 at a Fort Worth, Texas, radio station and landed him at CBS News in Washington when he walked in on someone else's interview.

He's one of the last of a generation of reporters working at such a high level; he covered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a story that gave him one of the biggest scoops of his career.

He learned the craft of reporting, and the importance of checking out facts, from hard-bitten newspaper editors. He's concerned that many young journalists now work in jobs without editors to guide them.

His Kennedy scoop was a spectacular example of the importance of simply answering the phone.

As a newspaper reporter in Fort Worth in November 1963, he picked up a ringing phone to find Lee Harvey Oswald's mother on the line.

She was looking for a ride to Dallas to see her son, the suspected gunman in the Kennedy assassination.

Schieffer grabbed a notebook and drove right over to her.

Schieffer never lost his Texas twang. No need. It reinforces his signature of asking direct, to-the-point questions without getting lost in the weeds of political mumbo jumbo.

Recently, an aspiring reporter in Texas sent Schieffer a note seeking advice on a school project.

Schieffer sent his phone number and the student replied that he'd rather talk via email. Schieffer Rule No. 1: pick up the phone or drop by.

"How do you ask a follow-up question?" he said.

"How do you listen to a person and the tone of his voice to know whether he's putting you on?

“The best way to interview someone is face-to-face and I think we ought to get to that whenever we can."

Chances are he won't completely disappear from CBS News, with some elder statesman role likely.

For now, he's looking forward to a summer off.