Richard M. Cohen, 76, a news producer who wrote about Health Challenge, has died

Richard M. Cohen, an outspoken and award-winning television news producer whose career was ultimately derailed by the devastating effects of multiple sclerosis, which he wrote about in his best-selling memoirs, died Dec. 24 in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., a village in the Westchester County. He was 76.

His wife, former “Today” anchor Meredith Vieira, said his death in the hospital was due to acute respiratory failure.

Mr. Cohen spent more than 20 years in the news industry, working with luminaries such as Ted Koppel at ABC and Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather at CBS. But he tackled a different topic when he wrote a memoir — and articles for HuffPost, The New York Times and other media outlets — about dealing with MS, a degenerative disease of the central nervous system.

Mr. Cohen was diagnosed with MS in 1973, when he was 25 and helped create a documentary for PBS about the politics of disability.

Although his eyesight deteriorated, resulting in legal blindness, and his sense of balance deteriorated, resulting in falls that made him appear drunk to the uninformed, he worked as a producer for CBS News, CNN, (again) PBS and until the mid-1990s FX.

“Richard was a man of lively, good humor and bright intelligence,” Mr. Koppel wrote in an email. “I’m sure his many illnesses caused him more than the occasional bout of despair, but he never told me that.”

One of Mr. Cohen’s strategies for dealing with MS—and living life the way he wanted to—was denial. He told very few people about it, including the CBS News executive who hired him in 1979, fearing he would be viewed as unsuitable. Years later, he learned from that manager that if he had been honest about his condition, he would not have been hired.

In 2004, about a decade after his producing career ended, he published what he called a “reluctant memoir,” Blindsided: Lifting a Life Above Illness, in which he recounted how his once-vibrant life went through MS and two bouts of colon cancer.

“Welcome to my world,” Mr. Cohen wrote in the book, which spent several weeks on the Times best-seller list, “where I carry dreams, a few illnesses and a determination to live life my way.” This one Book is my daily conversation with myself, a chronicle of the struggles in this exotic place north of the Neck.”

Ms. Vieira said in an interview that MS left Mr. Cohen’s right side so immobile that he typed “Blindsided” and subsequent books only with his nondominant left hand and with his face close to the computer screen.

“He had a lot of determination and a lot to say,” she said.

His second book, “Strong at the Broken Places: Voices of Illness, a Chorus of Hope” (2008), gave him some distance from his own illnesses. In this book he introduced five people with chronic diseases: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease; non-Hodgkin lymphoma; Crohn’s disease; muscular dystrophy; and bipolar illness.

Richard Merrill Cohen was born on February 14, 1948 in Manhattan. His father Benjamin was a doctor; his mother, Theresa (Beitzer) Cohen, was a nurse. His father and paternal grandmother also suffered from MS

Mr. Cohen was a “no-gooder” in high school, he wrote in “Blindsided,” and was kicked off sports teams, expelled from classes and suspended. In a spectacular prank, he and some friends stole the electric chair from an abandoned prison; his father forced him to return it the next day.

His focus sharpened at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, near Des Moines, where he worked as an antiwar activist. He was inspired to become a broadcast journalist after speaking with Peter Jennings, then an ABC News correspondent, during his visit to campus.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in history and political science in 1970, Mr. Cohen was hired by ABC News as assistant producer of the Sunday public affairs program “Issues and Answers.” In 1972, he served as speaker for Mr. Koppel at the Democratic and Republican presidential conventions.

In 1973, he joined the PBS program “America ’73,” where he helped produce the documentary about disability. Coincidentally, during his time at PBS, he experienced symptoms that led to a diagnosis of MS by a neurologist

“I dropped a coffee pot for no reason,” he told Yahoo in 2019. “I fell off the curb for no reason.” I noticed a slight numbness in my leg.”

“It affected my vision pretty quickly,” he continued, “but other than that I was very physically active and thought I had really nailed it. I was living in denial.”

He received a master’s degree from Columbia University Journalism School in 1976 and then continued working at PBS after being turned down for a job at “NBC Nightly News” because he admitted to suffering from MS

In 1979 he joined CBS News as a producer. He worked for Mr. Cronkite and Mr. Rather and traveled to trouble spots in Poland, Lebanon and El Salvador for the “CBS Evening News,” even as his condition worsened.

“He was an original,” Andrew Heyward, a former “Evening News” executive producer who later became president of CBS News, said in an interview. “There was a kind of pattern at CBS where people operated within unspoken constraints, but he wasn’t bound by those conventions. He was outspoken, charming, and had the quality of an absent-minded professor that people found endearing.”

Mr. Cohen’s rebellion was expressed publicly in opinion essays for The Times. In 1987 (under Mr. Rather’s name, but written together), the article warned, following cuts at CBS News, that the department could slide into mediocrity under the network’s new owner and chief executive, Laurence A. Tisch. The article angered Mr. Tisch and Howard Stringer, the president of CBS News.

Later that year, when Mr. Cohen was in charge of foreign news as producer of the “Evening News,” he wrote (this time under his own name) that Western news outlets should leave South Africa because of severe restrictions on reporting imposed by the apartheid state. The government demanded assurances from CBS that Mr. Cohen was speaking for himself and not for the network.

More importantly, he criticized Mr. Rather for his handling of a hostile, controversial live “Evening News” interview with Vice President George Bush on Jan. 25, 1988, early in the presidential campaign. Mr. Rather aggressively pressed the vice president on his role in the Iran-Contra scandal; The Bush campaign accused CBS of misrepresenting the terms of the interview.

“Look, I think Dan made mistakes,” Mr. Cohen told The Des Moines Register. “I think his attitude was probably too aggressive, but that’s not the problem.” He added: “We’ve suffered a serious blow. I think it hurt us a lot. To Dan. To our credibility.”

About six weeks later, CBS News ousted Mr. Cohen as senior “Evening News” producer over political coverage. He turned down another assignment and left the network.

During his time at CBS, Mr. Cohen won two Emmys for reporting on the “Evening News.” After returning to PBS, he won a third-place finish in 1989 for a segment on “The Public Mind With Bill Moyers” about the power of images on news, politics and elections. His piece was included in a four-part feature that won “The Public Mind” a Peabody Award.

After moving to CNN, Mr. Cohen produced a 1992 documentary about Bill Clinton during his successful run for the presidency. He ended his career as a producer at FX in the mid-1990s.

In addition to Ms. Vieira, Mr. Cohen is survived by her daughter, Lily Cohen; her sons Gabe and Ben; a grandson; his brother Bernard; and his sister Terrie Cohen.

Mr. Cohen didn’t want to feel sorry for him or praise him for his management of multiple sclerosis.

“Those who struggle with serious illness every day and refuse to become victims are constantly told that we inspire the chronically healthy,” he wrote in HuffPost in 2014. He added: “Allow me to set the record straight.” There are no heroes, only survivors. There are no medals or merit badges hanging from our chests.”