American television journalist (born 1960)
Byron Pitts
(born October 21, 1960) is an American journalist and author, working for
ABC News
as co-anchor for the network's late night news program,
Nightline
.
[1]
Until March 2013, he served as a chief national correspondent for
The CBS Evening News
and contributed regularly to
60 Minutes
.
Early life
[
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]
Pitts was born October 21, 1960, to Clarice and William Pitts
[2]
in
Baltimore
,
Maryland
.
[3]
He grew up in a working-class neighborhood, raised by a single mother.
[4]
In his memoir, Pitts discussed that he had a debilitating
stutter
as a child and was "
functionally illiterate
" until about age 12. He attended
Archbishop Curley High School
, an all-boys
Catholic
high school in Baltimore. He went on to
Ohio Wesleyan University
, but spent summers in
Apex, North Carolina
.
[5]
He graduated in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in journalism and speech communication.
Career
[
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Pitts has always wanted to be a journalist. It was his goal, since he was 18 years old, to be a correspondent on the CBS show
60 Minutes
.
[5]
He interned at
WTVD
in
Durham, North Carolina
. After graduation, he bounced around to various television stations on the East Coast. During 1983?84, he reported and served as weekend sports anchor at
WNCT-TV
in
Greenville, North Carolina
He was a military reporter for
WAVY-TV
in
Portsmouth, Virginia
(1984?86) and a reporter for
WESH-TV
Orlando
(1986?88). He moved across the Florida peninsula to
Tampa
to be a reporter and substitute
anchor
for
WFLA-TV
(1988?89). After a brief stint there, he moved to Boston as a special assignment reporter for
WCVB-TV
(1989?94). His last local job was as a general assignment reporter for
WSB-TV
in Atlanta,
Georgia
(1994?96).
Pitts then moved to Washington, D.C. as a correspondent for
CBS Newspath
, the 24-hour affiliate news service of
CBS News
(1997?98). He was named a CBS News correspondent in May 1998, and was based in the Miami (1998?99) and Atlanta (1999?2001) bureaus and eventually New York City in January 2001.
Pitts was one of CBS News' lead reporters during the
September 11 attacks
and won a national
Emmy Award
for his coverage. As an embedded reporter covering the Iraq War, he was recognized for his work under fire within minutes of the fall of the
Saddam Hussein
statue. Other major stories covered by Pitts include
Hurricane Katrina
, the war in Afghanistan, the military buildup in
Kuwait
, the Florida fires, the
Elian Gonzalez
story, the Florida Presidential recount, the mudslides in Central America and the refugee crisis in
Kosovo
.
Pitts other awards include a national Emmy Award for his coverage of the Chicago train wreck in 1999 and a
National Association of Black Journalists
Award (2002). He is also the recipient of four
Associated Press
Awards and six regional Emmy Awards.
Pitts published a memoir,
Step Out on Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life's Challenges
on September 29, 2009.
See also
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References
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Websites
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