Dennis Murphy (television journalist)
Encyclopedia
Dennis J. Murphy is an American
television
journalist
and winner of four national Emmys for excellence in news reporting, known for regular contributions to NBC News
, NBC Nightly News
, Dateline NBC
, and The Today Show.
in 1965 and from Williams College
in 1969. He and his wife, Marilyn, live in Florida.
from more than 50 countries. As a regular contributor to NBC Nightly News
with Tom Brokaw
and Today, his assignments have given him a front-row seat for some of the biggest stories of the last two decades—from wars in the Persian Gulf
and Central America
to the collapse of the Soviet Empire
and the Berlin Wall
, and most recently, the war on terror
in Afghanistan.
, the NBC affiliate in Seattle, Wash. He began his career as a desk assistant at WCBS-TV
in New York and worked for several years as an assignment editor, producer and reporter at KHOU-TV
in Houston, Texas
.
, a deadly volcanic eruption
in Colombia and drug lord
s were all part of his watch in the 80s. In 1988 he covered the Democratic presidential primaries and was NBC’s traveling correspondent on the Bush campaign.
. In 2000, he received an Edward R. Murrow Award for a report on Hurricane Floyd
and a Clarion Award for a spot news story
on the Oklahoma City bombing
. In 1999, he was awarded an Emmy Award
, Clarion Award, Harry Chapin
Media Award and a National Headliner Award for “Children of the Harvest,” the story about children in the U.S. working as migrant laborers on farms. In addition, he received a Clarion Award for his work on “A Few Good Men
,” the story of several men from one marine unit who fought together in Vietnam. Murphy has also received a National Association of Black Journalists
Award for International Reporting. In 1996, he was honored with two Emmys for his work on Dateline and an American Bar Association
certificate of merit for an hour-long Dateline program on the anatomy of a civil trial.
bureau as chief foreign correspondent
for Today where his stories took him literally around the world: Japan
, Thailand
, India
, Africa
, the Middle-East
, and Europe
. His major assignments include the revolutions of Eastern Europe
in 1989, German unification
, the last days of Margaret Thatcher
, funerals of the Ayatollah and Emperor Hirohito
. Murphy was a frequent visitor to Moscow in the turbulent times when McDonald’s
arrived and Gorbachev and seventy-five years of an old order left. He was at the Berlin Wall the night the first West Berliner climbed it in defiance of border guard
s below. Murphy also covered the plight of the Kurds in Iraq
following the Gulf War and reported in the early 90s from hot spots such as Baghdad, Bosnia and Mogadishu. He won his first Emmy for a report on revolution in Romania in 1989.
Foundation and the Margaret Sanger
Award for a Dateline report on late-term abortions. He also received the first place Headliners Award for an hour report on the Cunanan/Versace murder. Recently, he has received two Edward R. Murrow
Awards, two Clarion Awards and a Gracie honorable mention.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and winner of four national Emmys for excellence in news reporting, known for regular contributions to NBC News
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of American television network NBC. It first started broadcasting in February 21, 1940. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is...
, NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News and broadcasts. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is located in the center...
, Dateline NBC
Dateline NBC
Dateline NBC, or Dateline, is a U.S. weekly television newsmagazine broadcast by NBC. It previously was NBC's flagship news magazine, but now focuses on true crime stories. It airs Friday at 9 p.m. EST and after football season on Sunday at 7 p.m. EST.-History:Dateline is historically notable for...
, and The Today Show.
Personal life
Murphy graduated from the Georgetown Preparatory SchoolGeorgetown Preparatory School
Georgetown Preparatory School is an American Jesuit college preparatory school for grades 9 through 12. It is the oldest all boys school in the United States, and the only Jesuit boarding school in the country...
in 1965 and from Williams College
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...
in 1969. He and his wife, Marilyn, live in Florida.
Career
Dennis J. Murphy has covered stories for NBC NewsNBC News
NBC News is the news division of American television network NBC. It first started broadcasting in February 21, 1940. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is...
from more than 50 countries. As a regular contributor to NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News and broadcasts. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is located in the center...
with Tom Brokaw
Tom Brokaw
Thomas John "Tom" Brokaw is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He is the author of The Greatest Generation and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors...
and Today, his assignments have given him a front-row seat for some of the biggest stories of the last two decades—from wars in the Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
and Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
to the collapse of the Soviet Empire
Soviet Empire
During the Cold War, the informal term "Soviet Empire" referred to the Soviet Union's influence over a number of smaller nations who were nominally independent but subject to direct military force if they tried to leave the Soviet system; see Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and Prague Spring.Though...
and the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
, and most recently, the war on terror
War on Terrorism
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
in Afghanistan.
Early career
Before joining NBC News, Murphy was a reporter for KING-TVKING-TV
KING-TV, virtual channel 5, is a television station in Seattle, Washington, affiliated with the NBC network. Owned by Belo Corporation, it broadcasts on UHF digital channel 48. Its offices and broadcasting center are located just east of Seattle Center...
, the NBC affiliate in Seattle, Wash. He began his career as a desk assistant at WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV, channel 2, is the flagship station of the CBS television network, located in New York City. The station's studios are located within the CBS Broadcast Center and its transmitter is atop the Empire State Building, both in Midtown Manhattan....
in New York and worked for several years as an assignment editor, producer and reporter at KHOU-TV
KHOU-TV
KHOU is the CBS affiliate television station in Houston, Texas. Serving Greater Houston, it is owned by the Belo Corporation and broadcasts on digital and PSIP channel 11...
in Houston, Texas
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
.
NBC News
Murphy began his career as an NBC News correspondent in 1982 at the Burbank bureau. The following year he was assigned to Miami from where he traveled extensively throughout South and Central America. The invasion of Grenada, civil war in Nicaragua and El SalvadorEl Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
, a deadly volcanic eruption
Volcano
2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...
in Colombia and drug lord
Drug lord
A drug lord, drug baron or kingpin is the term used to describe a person who controls a sizable network of persons involved in the illegal drugs trade. Such figures are often difficult to bring to justice, as they might never be directly in possession of something illegal, but are insulated from...
s were all part of his watch in the 80s. In 1988 he covered the Democratic presidential primaries and was NBC’s traveling correspondent on the Bush campaign.
Dateline NBC
Since May 1994, Murphy has been a correspondent with Dateline NBCDateline NBC
Dateline NBC, or Dateline, is a U.S. weekly television newsmagazine broadcast by NBC. It previously was NBC's flagship news magazine, but now focuses on true crime stories. It airs Friday at 9 p.m. EST and after football season on Sunday at 7 p.m. EST.-History:Dateline is historically notable for...
. In 2000, he received an Edward R. Murrow Award for a report on Hurricane Floyd
Hurricane Floyd
Hurricane Floyd was the sixth named storm, fourth hurricane, and third major hurricane in the 1999 Atlantic hurricane season. Floyd triggered the third largest evacuation in US history when 2.6 million coastal residents of five states were ordered from their homes as it approached...
and a Clarion Award for a spot news story
News style
News style is the prose style used for news reporting in media such as newspapers, radio and television....
on the Oklahoma City bombing
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...
. In 1999, he was awarded an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
, Clarion Award, Harry Chapin
Harry Chapin
Harry Forster Chapin was an American singer-songwriter best known in particular for his folk rock songs including "Taxi", "W*O*L*D", and the number-one hit "Cat's in the Cradle". Chapin was also a dedicated humanitarian who fought to end world hunger; he was a key player in the creation of the...
Media Award and a National Headliner Award for “Children of the Harvest,” the story about children in the U.S. working as migrant laborers on farms. In addition, he received a Clarion Award for his work on “A Few Good Men
A Few Good Men
A Few Good Men is a play by Aaron Sorkin, first produced on Broadway by David Brown in 1989. It tells the story of military lawyers at a court-martial who uncover a high-level conspiracy in the course of defending their clients, United States Marines accused of murder.It opened on Broadway at the...
,” the story of several men from one marine unit who fought together in Vietnam. Murphy has also received a National Association of Black Journalists
National Association of Black Journalists
The National Association of Black Journalists is an organization of African American journalists, students, and media professionals. Founded in 1975 in Washington, D.C...
Award for International Reporting. In 1996, he was honored with two Emmys for his work on Dateline and an American Bar Association
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
certificate of merit for an hour-long Dateline program on the anatomy of a civil trial.
NBC Foreign Correspondent
Before Dateline, Murphy was posted in NBC’s LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
bureau as chief foreign correspondent
Foreign correspondent
Foreign Correspondent may refer to:*Foreign correspondent *Foreign Correspondent , an Alfred Hitchcock film*Foreign Correspondent , an Australian current affairs programme...
for Today where his stories took him literally around the world: Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, the Middle-East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. His major assignments include the revolutions of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
in 1989, German unification
Unification of Germany
The formal unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871 at the Versailles Palace's Hall of Mirrors in France. Princes of the German states gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm of Prussia as Emperor Wilhelm of the German...
, the last days of Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, funerals of the Ayatollah and Emperor Hirohito
Hirohito
, posthumously in Japan officially called Emperor Shōwa or , was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from December 25, 1926, until his death in 1989. Although better known outside of Japan by his personal name Hirohito, in Japan he is now referred to...
. Murphy was a frequent visitor to Moscow in the turbulent times when McDonald’s
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
arrived and Gorbachev and seventy-five years of an old order left. He was at the Berlin Wall the night the first West Berliner climbed it in defiance of border guard
Border guard
The border guard, frontier guard, border patrol, border police, or frontier police of a country is a national security agency that performs border control, i.e., enforces the security of the country's national borders....
s below. Murphy also covered the plight of the Kurds in Iraq
Iraqi Kurdistan
Iraqi Kurdistan or Kurdistan Region is an autonomous region of Iraq. It borders Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, Syria to the west and the rest of Iraq to the south. The regional capital is Arbil, known in Kurdish as Hewlêr...
following the Gulf War and reported in the early 90s from hot spots such as Baghdad, Bosnia and Mogadishu. He won his first Emmy for a report on revolution in Romania in 1989.
Awards
In addition to his four Emmys, Murphy has won two San Francisco State media awards, an EDI from the Easter SealsEaster Seals
Easter Seals is an international charitable organization devoted to providing opportunities for children with physical disabilities. See*Easter Seals *Easter Seals *Easter Seals...
Foundation and the Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger was an American sex educator, nurse, and birth control activist. Sanger coined the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established Planned Parenthood...
Award for a Dateline report on late-term abortions. He also received the first place Headliners Award for an hour report on the Cunanan/Versace murder. Recently, he has received two Edward R. Murrow
Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick...
Awards, two Clarion Awards and a Gracie honorable mention.