Ron Nessen

Ron Nessen has spent most of his adult life covering major news stories from all parts of the world.

After graduating from American University in the 1950’s, Ron began his career at a radio station in Martinsburg, West Virginia, covering local events and anchoring newscasts. He returned to the Washington area as a reporter for the Montgomery County Sentinel newspaper. An editor at the UPI offered Ron a job at the wire service after reading a story he wrote for the Sentinel about surreptitiously attending a meeting by a group of parents fighting school integration.

Ron spent six years as an editor at the UPI. In 1962, he joined NBC News as a radio and TV correspondent. Over the next 13 years he was based in Washington, London, Mexico City, and Saigon. Among the major stories he covered were the Vietnam War, the early integration confrontations in the South, the search for Che Guevara in Latin America, and presidential election campaigns.

Ron won the George Foster Peabody Award for his coverage of the Civil Rights revolution. He won the George Polk Memorial Award of the Overseas Press Club and the Edward R. Murrow Brotherhood Award for his Viet Nam coverage.
He later ran the news department at the Mutual Broadcasting System, the world’s largest radio network. And was managing editor of the Nostalgia TV Cable Network, Ron served as President Gerald Ford’s White House Press Secretary. Among other historic events during the Ford presidency, Ron announced the end of the Vietnam War and helped prepare the President for a series of debates during the 1976 presidential election campaign.

He has written a number of books, fiction and non-fiction, including a memoir, Making The News, Taking The News. He was co-author of a three-book series of mystery novels, The Knight & Day Mysteries.

Among other community activities, Ron served on the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and was a judge for the EMMA Awards recognizing outstanding news coverage by women journalists. He has served as a mentor for a high school journalism class and recorded audio books for the blind, among other volunteer activities.