Benjamin Sampair Tracy (born July 16, 1976, in St. Paul, Minnesota) is an American journalist known for his work as a national correspondent for CBS News from January 2008 until September 2024. [1] [2] He served as CBS's White House correspondent from 2019 to 2020, [3] and was the network's senior environmental correspondent, based in Los Angeles. [4] [2]
Tracy was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. He graduated from St. Thomas Academy, and later from Marquette University with Bachelor's degrees in broadcast journalism and political science, and with a Master's degree in public service.
Tracy was a reporter for WCCO-TV, the CBS-affiliate station in Minneapolis, where he was a member of the station's investigative team, covering many major stories, including the methamphetamine epidemic and the collapse of the 35W bridge.[ citation needed ]
During that time, he also was a contributor to the Saturday Early Show , to which he brought his signature "Good Question" segment, started at WCCO-TV, to a national audience. Tracy also reported for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric on the collapse of the I-35W bridge and flooding in southern Minnesota.[ citation needed ]
Before joining WCCO-TV, Tracy worked as a reporter at WISN-TV Milwaukee and WBAY-TV Green Bay, Wisconsin. He is the recipient of five Emmy Awards and the Alfred DuPont-Columbia award for excellence in broadcast journalism.[ citation needed ]
On October 5, 2020, Tracy criticized the lack of adherence he observed at the Trump White House to public health guidelines to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic "I felt safer reporting in North Korea than I currently do reporting at The White House. This is just crazy. For context folks, this is in reference to the COVID-19 outbreak at The White House." [5] [ non-primary source needed ] The tweet garnered nearly 195,000 "Likes", [3] as well as swift criticism from Republicans. [3] [6]
ABC News is the news division of the American television network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ABC World News Tonight with David Muir; other programs include morning news-talk show Good Morning America, Nightline, Primetime, 20/20, and Sunday morning political affairs program This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. CBS News television programs include the CBS Evening News, CBS Mornings, news magazine programs CBS News Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, and 48 Hours, and Sunday morning political affairs program Face the Nation. CBS News Radio produces hourly newscasts for hundreds of radio stations, and also oversees CBS News podcasts like The Takeout Podcast. CBS News also operates CBS News 24/7, a 24-hour digital news network.
The Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award honors excellence in broadcast and digital journalism in the public service and is considered one of the most prestigious awards in journalism. The awards were established in 1942 and administered until 1967 by Washington and Lee University's O. W. Riegel, Curator and Head of the Department of Journalism and Communications. Since 1968 they have been administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City, and are considered by some to be the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, another program administered by Columbia University.
WCCO-TV, branded CBS Minnesota, is a television station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, serving as the CBS outlet for the Twin Cities area. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, and maintains studios on South 11th Street along Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis; its transmitter is located at the Telefarm complex in Shoreview, Minnesota.
The White House press corps is the group of journalists, correspondents, and members of the media usually assigned to the White House in Washington, D.C., to cover the president of the United States, White House events, and news briefings. Its offices are located in the West Wing.
Bob Lloyd Schieffer is an American television journalist. He is known for his moderation of presidential debates, where he has been praised for his capability. Schieffer is one of the few journalists to have covered all four of the major Washington national assignments: the White House, the Pentagon, United States Department of State, and United States Congress. His career with CBS has almost exclusively dealt with national politics. He has interviewed every United States President since Richard Nixon, as well as most of those who sought the office.
Lesley Rene Stahl is an American television journalist. She has spent most of her career with CBS News, where she began as a producer in 1971. Since 1991, she has reported for CBS's 60 Minutes. She is known for her news and television investigations and award-winning foreign reporting. For her body of work she has earned various journalism awards including a Lifetime Achievement News and Documentary Emmy Award in 2003 for overall excellence in reporting.
Norah Morahan O'Donnell is an American television journalist who is the anchor of the CBS Evening News, a correspondent for 60 Minutes, and host of Person to Person. She has worked with several mainstream media outlets throughout her career, including as former co-anchor of CBS This Morning, Chief White House Correspondent for CBS News, and a substitute host for CBS's Sunday morning show Face the Nation.
Michele Tafoya is an American reporter and retired sports broadcaster. Most notably, from 2011 to 2022, she worked primarily as a sideline reporter for NBC Sunday Night Football. Over the course of her career, she covered the National Football League, the Olympics, and professional basketball. Since Tafoya's departure from sportscasting, she has worked as a conservative political consultant and makes television appearances to discuss the state of American politics and culture.
Donald Gilbert Shelby is a retired American journalist who was a news anchor on WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota for much of his career. He is regarded as an experienced investigative journalist, as his work has earned two Peabody awards and three Emmy Awards. He also has won the other three top journalism awards of the United States, including the Columbia DuPont Citation, the Scripps-Howard Award and the Society of Professional Journalists Distinguished Service Award.
Interstate 35W (I-35W) is an Interstate Highway in the US state of Minnesota, passing through downtown Minneapolis. It is one of two through routes for I-35 through the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the other being I-35E through downtown Saint Paul.
The I-35W Mississippi River bridge was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge that carried Interstate 35W across the Mississippi River one-half mile downstream from the Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The bridge opened in 1967, and was Minnesota's third busiest, carrying 140,000 vehicles daily. After only 39 years in service, it experienced a catastrophic failure during the evening rush hour on August 1, 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) cited a design flaw as the likely cause of the collapse, noting that an excessively thin gusset plate ripped along a line of rivets. Additional weight on the bridge at the time of failure was also cited by the NTSB as a contributing factor.
Carol Marin is a television and print journalist based in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Cameron Pelley is an American author and reporter for CBS News for more than 31 years. Pelley is the author of the 2019 book, Truth Worth Telling, and a correspondent for the CBS News magazine 60 Minutes. Pelley served as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 2011 to 2017, a period in which the broadcast added more than a million and a half viewers, achieving its highest ratings in more than a decade. Pelley served as CBS News’s chief White House correspondent from 1997 to 1999.
The I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge crosses the Mississippi River one-half mile downstream from the Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the U.S., carrying north–south traffic on Interstate 35W. The ten-lane bridge replaced the I-35W Mississippi River bridge, which collapsed on August 1, 2007. It was planned and is maintained by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT). The planning, design, and construction processes were completed more quickly than normal because Interstate 35W is a critical artery for commuters and truck freight. The bridge opened September 18, 2008, well ahead of the original goal of December 24.
Major Elliott Garrett is an American journalist who is chief Washington correspondent for CBS News. Garrett is the host of The Takeout podcast and was a correspondent for National Journal. Prior to joining National Journal, he was the senior White House correspondent for Fox News. He covered the 2004 presidential election, the War on Terror, and the 2008 presidential election, and he is also a fill-in and substitute anchor for CBS Evening News, and Face the Nation.
Susan Spencer is an American television news reporter and correspondent for 48 Hours Mystery and CBS Sunday Morning.
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Katherine Bear Tur is an American author, and broadcast journalist working as a correspondent for NBC News. Tur is an anchor for MSNBC, where since 2021 she has hosted Katy Tur Reports. She has also reported for the NBC news platforms Early Today, Today, NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press, and WNBC-TV, and for The Weather Channel.
Weijia Jiang is a Chinese-American television journalist and reporter. She is based in Washington, D.C., and has served as the Senior White House Correspondent for CBS News since July 2018. Jiang's question to President Donald Trump about the COVID-19 testing program in the United States during a White House press briefing received global attention and coverage.