Lesley Stahl

Career

Stahl covered major U.S. historical events including the Watergate scandal in 1972, the impeachment hearings of President Nixon in 1974, the 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan, and the 1991 Gulf War. She reported on U.S./Russian summit meetings, economic summits of industrialized countries, national political conventions, and election nights. Her investigations examined enhanced interrogation methods against Al Qaeda during the Iraq War, cruelty Saddam Hussein inflicted on Iraqi children, practices within Guantánamo Bay, and tensions in the Middle East and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

She began her television broadcasting career at Boston's WHDH-TV as a producer and on-air reporter, joining CBS News in 1971 and becoming a correspondent in 1974. Stahl credited her CBS News hire to the Federal Communications Commission's 1972 inclusion of women in its affirmative action mandate, noting that networks were seeking women and blacks with news experience. She recalled that on the night of the 1972 Nixon-McGovern election returns, her on-air studio chair was marked with masking tape reading "Female" instead of her name. Stahl mentored CBS news producer Susan Zirinsky.

Awards and honors

Stahl is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service. She has won 13 News & Documentary Emmy Awards including one for Lifetime Achievement. Her honors include the 1990 Dennis Kauff Journalism Award, the 1994 Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, the 1996 Fred Friendly First Amendment Award, and the 1996 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for the "Punishing Saddam" segment. She received the 2004 Gerald Loeb Award for Television Long Form business journalism, the 2012 Overseas Press Club award, the 2013 Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence in Television, the 2014 International Center For Journalists Founders Award, the 2015 Paul White Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the 2021 Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism.

Did You Know?

• Stahl was born to a Jewish family in Lynn, Massachusetts, and raised in Swampscott, Massachusetts.
• She married author Aaron Latham in 1977; he died in July 2022 from complications of Parkinson's disease.
• On the May 3, 2020, broadcast of 60 Minutes, Stahl revealed she had been hospitalized with COVID-19 and later recovered.