Lesley Stahl (born Lesley Rene Stahl) is one a prominent female journalist. She was born in Massachusetts, in a Jewish family on December 16th, 1941. Her mother was a housewife, but Louis E. Stahl was a food company executive. She is married to Aaron Latham since 1977. They met during Watergate while Aaron was searching for Watergate anecdotes, but Stahl was
CBS's rookie coverer of the Watergate scandal. Lesley graduated Wheaton College in 1963; she is also an author. Her first and only literary work published was the 1999 semi-autobiographical book "Reporting Live" in which Lesley describes her experiences in the male-dominated world of television.
After college, she jumped into big journalism as a correspondent for
CBS. At the time, employment options for women were rare, but CBS set an ultimate - "if you can't start tomorrow, forget it." - Thus, she became a correspondent for
CBS in 1972. Right after she was hired, Stahl covered the Watergate hearings and the scandal in general. She then became the White House correspondent during Carter's, Reagan's and H. W. Bush's presidencies and covered the politics with wise observational comments and witty predictions for the presidential administrations.
Her rather quiet years as a correspondent were rewarded in the 2000s, when Stahl made headlines many times. While she was in office, Al Gore announced for the first time that he wouldn't try to run for president again in 2004. In 2007 an even more scandalous incident happened as the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, walked away from an interview with Stahl after a borderline offensive question.
Notable moments of Stahl's career include being the moderator of
CBS's Face the Nation for 8 years (early 1983 to May 1991), being the America Tonight anchor for 6 months, and her current work as the correspondent for 60 Minutes. She and Aaron Latham have a daughter, Taylor, and the three currently reside in New York. Lesley was a close associate to the late Don Hewitt, whom she remembers saying to her, "I hate your hair…" when she was new at 60 Minutes. Stahl didn't get offended and actually changed her hair... and clothes. Compromises like these set the course of her future career as a newswoman; you had to lose a lot of your self to television, and Stahl was certainly prepared to do that.
Nowadays, Lesley is an editor in the women's website wowOwow.com, where she writes on news of culture, politics, and gossip. She is still a correspondent for
CBS's 60 Minutes and has remained in the position for a whopping eighteen years. She has also acted newscaster voices in numerous movies, such as Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) and Eagle Eye (2008). She also acted herself in a 1998 episode of the TV series Frasier. Lesley Stahl is still an important news figure, and will remain in history as one of the first career women. Her exciting nature and straightforward attitude set the standards for women in television, and her always professional reporting is still worthwhile to study for new journalists.
