Background

Dickerson was born as Nancy Conners Hanschman, on January 19, 1927, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States.

Education

Dickerson attended the Clarke College (now University) in Dubuque, Iowa, for two years. In 1948 she obtained a degree in education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Career

Dickerson was a news correspondent for CBS, beginning in 1960.

Throughout her career in journalism, she reported on three U.S. presidents, Martin Luther King, Jr., and leaders in the Middle East, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin.

Early in her career she worked as a teacher in Milwaukee. Later, she became staff assistant to the U.S. Senate Committee of Foreign Relations in the early 1950s. She then convinced CBS to hire her as a producer of radio and television news programs, including The Leading Question and Face the Nation. After becoming a correspondent, Dickerson reported on the Democratic presidential campaign. She then hosted One Woman's Washington.

She later worked for NBC and PBS. In the 1970s she formed Dickerson Co. and produced syndicated television programs, including Inside Washington. She later worked for Newsweek Broadcasting Service and also founded the Television Corporation of America. Her documentary 784 Days That Changed America—From Watergate to Resignation focused on the presidency of Richard Nixon. She also produced Islam: The Veil and the Future for PBS.

From 1986 to 1991, she served as a commentator for Fox TV News.

She penned an autobiography, Among Those Present, which was published in 1976. The work covered the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and Gerald Ford. She had been working on a sequel before her death.

Achievements

• One of the first women to work as a broadcast reporter for a major network, Dickerson was the first female news correspondent for CBS.
  
  Dickerson's documentary 784 Days That Changed America—From Watergate to Resignation won her a Peabody Award in 1982. Dickerson also received the Pioneer Award from the New England Women’s Press Association. The Nancy Dickerson Whitehead Medallion is awarded annually by Clarke University to an outstanding professional in mass communication. Among her other awards were honors as Woman of the Year from Radio TV Daily in 1964.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Among those present: A reporter's view of twenty-five years in Washington

Membership

Dickerson was a past vice president of the National Press Club.

Connections

On February 22, 1962, Dickerson married C. Wyatt Dickerson, an industrialist, and became stepmother to his three daughters from a prior marriage. They had two sons together, Michael and John. Nancy and Wyatt divorced.

On February 25, 1989, she married former Goldman Sachs chairman John C. Whitehead.

Son:

John Dickerson

He is a journalist who previously hosted the CBS News program Face the Nation and is now a co-host on CBS This Morning.

Son:

Michael Dickerson

1-st husband:

C. Wyatt Dickerson