Morley Safer Biography

Fast Facts

• His special report "School for the Homeless," which documented a school attempting to provide education to over one million homeless children in America, earned him the Robert F․ Kennedy Journalism Award First Prize for Domestic Television
• A three-time George Foster Peabody Award winner, Safer has also received Brown University's Welles Hangen Award for Superior Achievement in Journalism and was named a knight of the French government's Order of Arts and Letters
• Attended Harbord Collegiate Institute and Clinton Street Public School in Ontario, and briefly attended at the University of Western Ontario
• Before landing a position at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, started his journalism career as a reporter for a number of Canadian newspapers, including Woodstock Sentinel Review, London Free Press and Toronto Telegram
• Quote: "(On his work as a journalist) "It's not literary, I wouldn't presume to suggest that․ But I think you can elevate it a little bit sometimes with the most important part of the medium, which is what people are saying․․․ It's not literature, but it can be very classy journalism․""
• After serving as the London bureau chief for CBS News, replaced journalist Harry Reasoner on "60 Minutes․"
• First joined CBS News in 1964 as a London-based correspondent and one year later opened the news bureau in Saigon
• Considered a pioneer in TV war coverage when he first reported on the 1956 Egypt-Israel conflict
• His report on a "search and destroy" mission with a group of U․S․ Marines was among the first to portray the Vietnam War in a colder, bleaker light
• His 1967 report "Morley Safer's Red China Diary" was the first report broadcast from inside the Communist country by an American network