Richard Leibner, pioneering agent of TV news stars, dies at 85

Richard Leibner, the accountant-turned-agent who turbocharged the careers of numerous TV journalists, died Tuesday after a long illness. “To say that Richard was iconic and larger than life is truly an understatement.” Over a nearly six-decade career, Leibner was known as a fierce negotiator for a who’s who of network TV news stars including Diane Sawyer, Mike Wallace, Norah O’Donnell, Ed Bradley, Bill Whitaker and Charlie Rose. “Richard broadened the definition of talent in the television news business and increased its value enormously,” Andrew Heyward, a former CBS News president, said in a 2022 interview. Leibner and his father eventually joined forces with Nate Bienstock, a life insurance salesman whose clients included CBS News commentator Eric Sevareid and author John Steinbeck. He later engineered Sawyer’s move to ABC News, where she eventually became anchor of “ABC World News Tonight.” Leibner’s business grew with the help of his wife, Carole Cooper, a former TV commercial producer he met on a blind date in 1962.