Diane Sawyer Biography

TV Newscaster

Photos ( See all 20 )

Diane Sawyer anchors ABC's World News Tonight and was previously the longtime host of the network's morning show Good Morning America. A graduate of Wellesley College (1967), Sawyer got her start in TV in Louisville, Kentucky, then became a press aide for the White House during the Richard Nixon administration. (She later assisted Nixon with his memoirs.) She ended up at CBS in 1978, moving up the network ladder and eventually landing a gig alongside Mike Wallace on the news magazine 60 Minutes (1984-89) . She then jumped to ABC in 1989, co-hosting PrimeTime Live and 20/20 and, at one point, becoming the highest-paid woman in American TV news. Sawyer built her reputation on tough investigative reports and interviews with world leaders and pop culture figures, and in 1999 she became an anchor for their daily show Good Morning America. On 21 December 2009 she moved into the anchor chair of World News Tonight.

Extra credit: Sawyer married Oscar- and Tony-winning director Mike Nichols on 29 April 1988. His films include The Graduate (1967) and Closer (2004). They have no children together, though Nichols has three from previous marriages.

Other TV news personalities of Sawyer's era include Mike Wallace, Walter Cronkite and Katie Couric.

Blog posts mentioning Diane Sawyer: