Lesley Stahl

Lesley Stahl
Lesley Stahl at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2010
Born	Lesley Rene Stahl (1941-12-16) December 16, 1941 (age 75) Lynn, Massachusetts, United States
Residence	New York City
Alma mater	Wheaton College
Occupation	News reporter
Years active	1972–present
Notable credit(s)	60 Minutes (1991–present)
Spouse(s)	Jeffrey Gordon (1964-?; divorced) Aaron Latham (m. 1977)
Children	1

Lesley Rene Stahl (born December 16, 1941) is an American television journalist. She has spent most of her career with CBS News, having been affiliated with that network since 1972; since 1991, she has reported for CBS' 60 Minutes.

Stahl was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Lynn, Massachusetts, and was raised in Swampscott, Massachusetts. She is the daughter of Dorothy J. (née Tishler), and Louis E. Stahl, a food company executive. In 1977, Stahl married author Aaron Latham. They have one child, Taylor Stahl Latham. The couple currently lives in New York City.

An honors graduate of Wheaton College who majored in History, Stahl began her television broadcasting career at Boston's original Channel 5, WHDH-TV as a producer and on-air reporter. She joined CBS News in 1972, and became a correspondent in 1974. "I was born on my 30th birthday," Stahl would later write about the experience. "Everything up till then was prenatal." Stahl credits her CBS News hire to the Federal Communication Commission's 1972 inclusion of women in its affirmative action mandate: "the television networks were scouring the country for women and blacks with any news experience at all. A friend in New York had called to tell me about a memo floating around CBS News mandating that 'the next reporter we hire will be a woman.'" According to Stahl, Connie Chung and Bernard Shaw were "the two other 'affirmative action babies' in what became known as the Class of '72." Stahl reflected in an interview on her early days at CBS how, on the night of the '72 Nixon-McGovern election returns, she found her on-air studio chair marked with masking tape, not with her name as with her colleagues, but with "Female." Stahl was the mentor of CBS news producer Susan Zirinsky.

Stahl's prominence grew after she covered the Watergate affair. She went on to become White House correspondent during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. At the Republican Convention of 1980, she broke the news on CBS that Reagan's negotiations with ex-President Ford had broken down and the answer to the question of who would be vice-presidential nominee was: "It's Bush! Yes, it's Bush!" George H. W. Bush had been standing perhaps not far away, largely off by himself, looking discouraged because he was sure he wasn't going to be chosen.