The cause was complications of Lewy body dementia, his wife, the former Shirley Humphrey, said.

Mr. Oliver worked for NBC Nightly News from the mid-1960s until 1992. As a national correspondent, he covered the civil rights movement, including the assassination and funeral of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and nearly a generation’s worth of political conventions and campaigns.

Mr. Oliver went abroad to report on conflicts in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam; the Middle East peace talks in 1977; and the Civil War in El Salvador.

In the 1980s he focused on environmental issues in the United States, notably the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

Donald Lynn Oliver was born on July 14, 1937, in Billings, Mont. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Montana’s School of Journalism and a master’s from Columbia University’s journalism school. He worked for local television stations until NBC made him its Midwest correspondent.

After he retired from NBC he worked as a media consultant and taught journalism at the University of Montana.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter from a previous marriage to Sharon Nelson, Cherie Ash; a stepson, Jeff Humphrey; a stepdaughter, Claire Humphrey; a sister, Kate Oliver; four grandchildren and four stepgrandchildren.

Mr. Oliver worried that the 24-hour news cycle was hurting television journalism.

“The rush to be first on the air,” he said in a 1999 interview, “has robbed television news of its ability to reflect.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/business/don-oliver-nbc-correspondent-dies-at-76.html?partner=rss&emc=rss