[3][7] He was recognized with a Peabody award for his coverage and courage for taking risk of "life and limb" during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
[2][8] In 1961, Leiser was replaced as bureau chief in Bonn by Daniel Schorr and became assistant general manager of CBS News for television.
He was an important part of CBS's coverage of the space program, political campaigns, conventions, and elections of national significance, civil rights and Vietnam[11] During the time Leiser was executive producer of the Evening News,[12] it went from trailing NBC's Huntley-Brinkley newscast to first place.
His coverage of the 200th anniversary of America for 141⁄2 hours on July 4, 1976 (In Celebration of US (CBS),1976)[18] won the network the Peabody Award.
In 1986 and later, he wrote that the TV news business had gone from being part of the public service required of a network to being looked at as a place to cut costs.
[20][21] He decried the thinning out of the reporting ranks, the closing down of foreign bureaus, and the lack of prime-time documentaries.He also taught journalism as a senior fellow at the Gannett Institute at Columbia.