Edward M. Joyce

Edward M. Joyce was an executive who spent nearly three decades at CBS, where he served as president of the news division in the 1980s.

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Joyce  grew up throughout the Southwest at a time when his father ran a magazine called The Last Frontier. He attended the University of Wyoming, but dropped to take a job as a disc jockey at a radio station in the city of Cody. 

In the years that followed he worked at a series of stations, and in 1959 he joined WCBS in New York. Initially, he continued to work on air, hosting programs about jazz musc, as well as the public-affairs program The Talk of New York, where his interview subjects included Malcolm X and Jackie Robinson. Eventually, however, he shifted to an executive track.

When he was promoted to president of CBS News in 1983, the network was facing signficant financial challenges, and his responsibilities included overseeing large staff reductions. Also during his tenure, the network reached a settlement with General William C. Westmoreland, who had filed a $120 million libel suit over statements in a 1982 documentary that suggested the general was part of a "conspiracy" to downplay the strength of enemy forces during the Vietnam War.

In 1988, he published a memoir title Prime Times Bad Times, in which he reflected on his years as head of CBS News.

Joyce died August 2, 2014, in Redding, Connecticut. He was 81.