Diane Sawyer Biography

Lila Diane Sawyer, a former member of US President Richard Nixon’s White House staff and current host of ABC News’ flagship late-night show ‘ABC World News’, is an eminent name on the list of competent women television journalists to date. . A journalist, newscaster and screenwriter, Diane has interviewed illustrious personalities and thus, with a massive salary and a net worth of around $60 million, she was frequently selected for the ‘100 Most Powerful Women in the World’ list. world’ from the annual Forbes magazine. With a prosperous career in the palm of her hands, Diane Sawyer has shown the world that she is truly the woman to look up to and inspire.

Early life and education of Diane Sawyer

Born December 22, 1945 in Glasgow, Kentucky, Diane is the daughter of Jean W. Sawyer (elementary school teacher) and Erbon Powers ‘Tom’ Sawyer (judge), who soon rose to local prominence as a Republican politician and community leader. and was a Judge/Executive for Kentucky’s Jefferson County, but was soon killed in a car accident on Louisville’s Interstate 64 in 1969. EP ‘Tom’ Sawyer State Park, located in the Frey’s Hill area of ​​Louisville, which was named in your Honor.

Diane attended Seneca High School in the Buechel area of ​​Louisville, where she served as editor-in-chief of her school newspaper called the Arrow, which clearly represented her artistic traits. In 1963, while in her senior year of high school, Diane won first place in the annual Junior Miss America Scholarship Pageant as a representative from the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Diane’s essay comparing the music of the North and the South during the Civil War won first place. During the period from 1962 to 1965, Diane traveled across the United States to promote the Coca-Cola Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair as America’s Miss Junior. Diane received her Bachelor of Arts with a minor in English from Wellesley College in 1967.

Diane was also a member of Wellesley College Blue Notes, an a cappella singing group, and the Phi Sigma Lecture Society. After attending a semester of law school at the University of Louisville, Diane made a decision and turned to journalism.

Diane Sawyer Career

Shortly after graduating, Diane was employed as a weather forecaster for WLKY-TV news in Louisville. Diane found the weather forecaster job boring, so to spice it up, she occasionally added quotes. Eventually, Diane worked her way up to a general assignment position.

Later in 1970, Diane decided to move to Washington DC and when she couldn’t find the job she wanted as a broadcast journalist, she went ahead and interviewed for positions in government offices.

Fortunately, Diane became an assistant to Jerry Warren, who was the White House deputy press secretary. To start with, Diane wrote press releases and soon graduated to various assignments including drafting some of President Richard Nixon’s public statements.

It had not been more than a few months when Diane was appointed Administrative Assistant to White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler, and finally Staff Assistant to the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, as she is known to this day.

Diane continued through the course of Nixon’s resignation in 1974 and worked on the Nixon-Ford transition team from 1974 to 1975. After that, she went with Nixon to California and helped him write his memoirs which were later published in 1978.

At the time, she was closely associated with Nixon, helping him prepare for his famous series of television interviews with journalist David Frost in 1977.

Diane returned to Washington DC in 1978 and soon joined CBS News as a general assignment reporter. Later, Ella Diane was promoted to Political Correspondent in February 1980 and appeared on the weeknight broadcast of ‘Morning with Charles Kuralt’.

Diane was soon announced as a co-host on May 13, 1981. The show’s ratings advanced after her arrival, but later, when Kuralt left and Bill Kurtis, the ratings dropped and Diane therefore asked to be reassigned.

It was a big deal for Diane in 1984 when she became the first female correspondent for ’60 Minutes,’ an investigative television newsmagazine for CBS News. Diane worked for five long years with “60 Minutes” and regularly ranked in the top five in the country.

In the year 1989, Diane moved to ABC News to co-anchor the newsmagazine ‘Primetime Live’. Diane interviewed famous people and her most notable first interview was with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad on June 28, 1990, which was Hussein’s first interview on Western television in a decade.

Shortly thereafter, on July 25, 1990, as a side effect of Hussein’s interview, the US ambassador to Iraq at the time, April Glaspie was forced to issue an apology to Saddam Hussein that later turned into a disaster. . Soon again in 1992, Diane had an interview with US President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton after her election to the presidency.

In 1999, Diane returned to the morning news as a co-anchor of “Good Morning America.” The assignment she was given was provisional, but her success rate in the position was much higher than expected.

By now Diane was highly regarded and in 1997 she was also inducted into the television hall of fame. From 1998 to 2000, Diane was a co-anchor of ABC’s ’20/20,’ a newsmagazine that airs on Wednesdays and Sundays.

In 2000, Diane returned as a co-anchor for the ‘Primetime’ newsmagazine. In 2005, the show went from its original name ‘Primetime Live’ to ‘Primetime’ and Diane left at the end of 2006 when its format changed again, with a sub-series. attention.

Diane Sawyer Net Worth

In 2000, Diane received a Daytime Emmy Award for Excellence in Morning Programming. Subsequently, the following year, she was named one of the thirty most powerful women in America by Ladies’ Home Journal.

Between June 2005 and June 2008, Diane earned approximately $12 million from entertainment income alone, making her a frequent selection to Forbes magazine’s annual List of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. In 2007, Diane once again received an Emmy Award for Outstanding News and Documentary Program Achievement Segment and Program.

Diane Sawyer’s personal life

She is now 68 years old, but her enthusiasm for journalism is so high that she doesn’t care how old she is, and she is currently the host of ABC News’ flagship program ‘ABC World News’.

In 2012, Diane received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Brown University. Diane lives happily with her husband Mike Nichols, whom she married on April 29, 1988. The couple have no children.

Diane is loved by her viewers and is very popular on various sites including the lifestyle. Diane follows the Roman Catholic religion. Recently, Ella Diane announced that she will be stepping down as ABC’s evening news anchor, to be replaced by David Muir.