Barry Petersen
Encyclopedia
Barry Petersen is an Emmy Award
-winning CBS
News Correspondent. He has reported from around the world on numerous issues, including wars, natural disasters, Paris fashions, the fading popularity of Welsh choirs, and the return of American Jazz to Shanghai, China. His stories have been datelined from virtually every continent in a career with CBS News that spans more than three decades.
Petersen also wrote "Jan’s Story: Love lost to the long goodbye of Alzheimer's" published in June, 2010, detailing the personal account of his wife's diagnosis with early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2005. Jan was also a CBS News journalist, reporting from both Japan and the former Soviet Union for CBS News Radio, CBS News Sunday Morning
, and the CBS Weekend News.
. Upon retirement, Kermit Petersen moved his family to Sidney, MT, home to his own father, Holger, who had emigrated from Denmark
in the early part of the 20th Century. Barry graduated from Sidney Senior High School in 1966 and went on to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism
where he graduated with a BSJ (1970) and MSJ (1972).
and then, while attending Northwestern University, went on to write articles for that same paper. During college, he was a summer intern for the Omaha World-Herald
(1967), the Miami Herald (1968), and then worked full time at the Arlington Day (1968–69) and as a copyeditor and columnist for Chicago Today (1970). He was also Publisher of the Daily Northwestern (1970). Upon graduation, he was hired as a general assignment reporter for the Milwaukee Journal (1970–1971).
, where he won several awards for his reports. He was also elected president of the local chapter of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
(AFTRA). In 1972, he went to work at WCCO-TV
, Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
, where he worked as a reporter, anchor, and host of a weekly public affairs broadcast. He co-anchored coverage of the 1978 funeral of Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D-MN), and filed extensive reports from Minnesota, Iowa, and North and South Dakota on the Midwestern drought throughout the mid-1970s that left farmers, ranchers, and many small town businesses bankrupt. His reports were often seen on the CBS Evening News
with Walter Cronkite
.
He went on to be the Correspondent and Bureau Chief for the CBS News Bureau in Moscow (1988–1991). From the then USSR, he reported from inside the Lithuanian Parliament the night it voted to become the first Republic to declare independence from the then Soviet Union, and covered pro-democracy rallies from Ukraine to Red Square
. He did stories from Moscow, Cuba, Malta, and Washington, DC on Mikhail Gorbachev
's summit meetings with world leaders, including with U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan
and George H.W. Bush. In 1989 he traveled to Beijing for Gorbachev's summit trip, a summit which prompted the historic and simultaneous democracy uprising in Tiananmen Square
.
He was transferred to the CBS News London Bureau (1991–1995) where his coverage responsibilities included Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He was embedded with US troops in Baghdad, reported on US troops during Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, and reported from several aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf during the ongoing conflicts with Iraq. He covered the genocide in Rwanda and its aftermath in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). He traveled extensively to Sarajevo as part of his reporting from the former Yugoslavian federation republics of Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Kosovo, and Macedonia.
His reports from Europe covered topics from the tensions between then East
and West Berlin
, the independence movement in Scotland
to break away from the United Kingdom, the ongoing troubles in Northern Ireland
, the neo-Nazi movement in Germany, and the failing marriage of Princess Diana and Prince Charles.
After returning to the CBS News Tokyo and Beijing Bureaus (1995–2009) Petersen was the first American television journalist who reported from inside a courtroom in Communist China
. He was among the very first reporters on the scene of the Asian tsunami of 2004, and returned to both Thailand and Indonesia several times to follow-up on relief efforts. From Kathmandu, Nepal, he did a story on a young American boy believed to be a reincarnated Buddhist monk. He also covered the Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan (1998)
, and the Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia (2000)
and Beijing, China (2008)
for both CBS News and CBS Sports.
During his career, he has interviewed the famous and the infamous, including Hollywood stars Jimmy Stewart, Bill Cosby
, Pierce Brosnan
, Sir Anthony Hopkins
, singer Tom Jones
, leaders of the Bosnian War who were later tried as war criminals, and the President of the South Seas nation of Kiribati
.
Petersen now lives in Denver, CO, where he continues reporting for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric
and CBS News Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood
. His daughters, Emily and Juliette, also live in Denver.
for a 1996 series for the CBS Evening News on American adopted Vietnamese orphans who were returning to visit their homeland for the first time. He earned another Emmy Award for his report on the Siege of Sarajevo
for CBS News Sunday Morning. He has been nominated as a finalist for Emmy Awards on numerous occasions, including for his reporting from Rwanda and China.
Petersen was part of the CBS News team covering the student uprising and government crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989 that was honored with an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and a George Foster Peabody Award. For his work with CBS News Radio he won the 1999 New York Festivals International Radio Awards "World Gold Medal" for his coverage of the Indonesian riots, and an Edward R. Murrow
Award for sports writing in 2002. A radio documentary, “Newsmark: Barry Petersen’s Tokyo,” produced by Jill Landes, won the Ohio State Award for Achievement of Merit in 1988.
In 2009 he was honored for his body of work by the Asian American Journalist Association (AAJA).
('Stalin's Funerals', 1990) filmed in Moscow and written and directed by noted Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko
.
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
-winning CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
News Correspondent. He has reported from around the world on numerous issues, including wars, natural disasters, Paris fashions, the fading popularity of Welsh choirs, and the return of American Jazz to Shanghai, China. His stories have been datelined from virtually every continent in a career with CBS News that spans more than three decades.
Petersen also wrote "Jan’s Story: Love lost to the long goodbye of Alzheimer's" published in June, 2010, detailing the personal account of his wife's diagnosis with early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2005. Jan was also a CBS News journalist, reporting from both Japan and the former Soviet Union for CBS News Radio, CBS News Sunday Morning
CBS News Sunday Morning
CBS News Sunday Morning is an American television news magazine program created by Robert Northshield and original host Charles Kuralt. The program has aired continuously since January 28, 1979 on the CBS Television Network, airing in the Eastern US on Sunday from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m...
, and the CBS Weekend News.
Early life
Barry Rex Petersen is the son of Mavis and Kermit Petersen. Kermit Petersen was a career US Army pilot who flew in both the Second World War and the Korean WarKorean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. Upon retirement, Kermit Petersen moved his family to Sidney, MT, home to his own father, Holger, who had emigrated from Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
in the early part of the 20th Century. Barry graduated from Sidney Senior High School in 1966 and went on to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism
Medill School of Journalism
The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University which offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It has consistently been one of the top-ranked schools in Journalism in the United States...
where he graduated with a BSJ (1970) and MSJ (1972).
Early journalism career
Petersen got his first taste of newspaper journalism as editor of the high school newspaper The Spokesman, and as a sports columnist for the Sidney Herald, Sidney, MT. He started his newspaper career as a delivery boy for the Billings GazetteBillings Gazette
The Billings Gazette is the largest newspaper in Montana and Northern Wyoming. It is geographically one of the largest distributed newspapers in the nation....
and then, while attending Northwestern University, went on to write articles for that same paper. During college, he was a summer intern for the Omaha World-Herald
Omaha World-Herald
The Omaha World-Herald, based in Omaha, Nebraska, is the primary daily newspaper of Nebraska, as well as portions of southwest Iowa. For decades it circulated daily throughout Nebraska, and in parts of Kansas, South Dakota, Missouri, Colorado and Wyoming. In 2008, distribution was reduced to the...
(1967), the Miami Herald (1968), and then worked full time at the Arlington Day (1968–69) and as a copyeditor and columnist for Chicago Today (1970). He was also Publisher of the Daily Northwestern (1970). Upon graduation, he was hired as a general assignment reporter for the Milwaukee Journal (1970–1971).
Local television career
In 1971, Peterson became an investigative reporter for WITI-TV in Milwaukee, WIWisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
, where he won several awards for his reports. He was also elected president of the local chapter of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is a performers' union that represents a wide variety of talent, including actors in radio and television, as well as radio and television announcers and newspersons, singers and recording artists , promo and voice-over announcers and other...
(AFTRA). In 1972, he went to work at WCCO-TV
WCCO-TV
WCCO-TV, is the CBS owned and operated television station that serves the Minneapolis-St. Paul area of Minnesota. Its transmitter is at the Telefarm complex in Shoreview, Minnesota.- History :...
, Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, where he worked as a reporter, anchor, and host of a weekly public affairs broadcast. He co-anchored coverage of the 1978 funeral of Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D-MN), and filed extensive reports from Minnesota, Iowa, and North and South Dakota on the Midwestern drought throughout the mid-1970s that left farmers, ranchers, and many small town businesses bankrupt. His reports were often seen on the CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
with Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
.
CBS news
Petersen was hired by CBS News in 1978, reporting first from the Los Angeles Bureau and then in 1981 moving to the San Francisco Bureau. While based in San Francisco, Petersen did the first network TV news report on a then-new disease called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).He went on to be the Correspondent and Bureau Chief for the CBS News Bureau in Moscow (1988–1991). From the then USSR, he reported from inside the Lithuanian Parliament the night it voted to become the first Republic to declare independence from the then Soviet Union, and covered pro-democracy rallies from Ukraine to Red Square
Red Square
Red Square is a city square in Moscow, Russia. The square separates the Kremlin, the former royal citadel and currently the official residence of the President of Russia, from a historic merchant quarter known as Kitai-gorod...
. He did stories from Moscow, Cuba, Malta, and Washington, DC on Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
's summit meetings with world leaders, including with U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
and George H.W. Bush. In 1989 he traveled to Beijing for Gorbachev's summit trip, a summit which prompted the historic and simultaneous democracy uprising in Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen Gate located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world...
.
He was transferred to the CBS News London Bureau (1991–1995) where his coverage responsibilities included Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He was embedded with US troops in Baghdad, reported on US troops during Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, and reported from several aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf during the ongoing conflicts with Iraq. He covered the genocide in Rwanda and its aftermath in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). He traveled extensively to Sarajevo as part of his reporting from the former Yugoslavian federation republics of Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Kosovo, and Macedonia.
His reports from Europe covered topics from the tensions between then East
East Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...
and West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
, the independence movement in Scotland
Scotland referendum, 1979
The Scottish referendum of 1979 was a post-legislative referendum to decide whether there was sufficient support for the Scotland Act 1978 among the Scottish electorate. This was an act to create a devolved deliberative assembly for Scotland...
to break away from the United Kingdom, the ongoing troubles in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, the neo-Nazi movement in Germany, and the failing marriage of Princess Diana and Prince Charles.
After returning to the CBS News Tokyo and Beijing Bureaus (1995–2009) Petersen was the first American television journalist who reported from inside a courtroom in Communist China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
. He was among the very first reporters on the scene of the Asian tsunami of 2004, and returned to both Thailand and Indonesia several times to follow-up on relief efforts. From Kathmandu, Nepal, he did a story on a young American boy believed to be a reincarnated Buddhist monk. He also covered the Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan (1998)
1998 Winter Olympics
The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially the XVIII Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event celebrated from 7 to 22 February 1998 in Nagano, Japan. Seventy-two nations and 2,176 participans contested in seven sports and 72 events at 15 venues. The games saw the introduction of Women's ice...
, and the Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia (2000)
2000 Summer Olympics
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
and Beijing, China (2008)
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...
for both CBS News and CBS Sports.
During his career, he has interviewed the famous and the infamous, including Hollywood stars Jimmy Stewart, Bill Cosby
Bill Cosby
William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, the...
, Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brendan Brosnan, OBE is an Irish actor, film producer and environmentalist. After leaving school at 16, Brosnan began training in commercial illustration, but trained at the Drama Centre in London for three years...
, Sir Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
, singer Tom Jones
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...
, leaders of the Bosnian War who were later tried as war criminals, and the President of the South Seas nation of Kiribati
Kiribati
Kiribati , officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The permanent population exceeds just over 100,000 , and is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, straddling the...
.
Personal life
Peterson married Jan Chorlton in San Francisco in 1985, and in 1986 they moved to Japan (1986–1987) where he was based in the CBS News Tokyo Bureau, beginning a long career as a foreign correspondent.Petersen now lives in Denver, CO, where he continues reporting for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric
Katie Couric
Katherine Anne "Katie" Couric is an American journalist and author. She serves as Special Correspondent for ABC News, contributing to ABC World News, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America, This Week and primetime news specials...
and CBS News Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood
Charles Osgood
Charles Osgood is a radio and television commentator in the United States. His daily program, The Osgood File, has been broadcast on the CBS Radio Network since 1971. He is also known for being the voice of the narrator of Horton Hears a Who!, an animated film released in 2008, based on the book...
. His daughters, Emily and Juliette, also live in Denver.
Awards and honors
Petersen’s awards include an Emmy AwardEmmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for a 1996 series for the CBS Evening News on American adopted Vietnamese orphans who were returning to visit their homeland for the first time. He earned another Emmy Award for his report on the Siege of Sarajevo
Siege of Sarajevo
The Siege of Sarajevo is the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. Serb forces of the Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav People's Army besieged Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 during the Bosnian War.After Bosnia...
for CBS News Sunday Morning. He has been nominated as a finalist for Emmy Awards on numerous occasions, including for his reporting from Rwanda and China.
Petersen was part of the CBS News team covering the student uprising and government crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989 that was honored with an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and a George Foster Peabody Award. For his work with CBS News Radio he won the 1999 New York Festivals International Radio Awards "World Gold Medal" for his coverage of the Indonesian riots, and an Edward R. Murrow
Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick...
Award for sports writing in 2002. A radio documentary, “Newsmark: Barry Petersen’s Tokyo,” produced by Jill Landes, won the Ohio State Award for Achievement of Merit in 1988.
In 2009 he was honored for his body of work by the Asian American Journalist Association (AAJA).
Filmography
Petersen rode out on a tank with Soviet troops retreating from Afghanistan in 1989. A segment of that report was later featured in the Mike Nichols movie Charlie Wilson’s War. He also played the part of a skeptical American diplomat in the movie Pokhorony StalinaPokhorony Stalina
Pokhorony Stalina is a 1990 Soviet drama film written and directed by the famous poet, Yevgeni Yevtushenko. The film stars the British actress, Vanessa Redgrave.-Cast:*Vanessa Redgrave as English journalist*Aleksey Batalov...
('Stalin's Funerals', 1990) filmed in Moscow and written and directed by noted Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko is a Soviet and Russian poet. He is also a novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, actor, editor, and a director of several films.-Early life:...
.