Rita Braver

RITA BRAVERcolor>

National Correspondent, CBS News

Senior Correspondent, CBS News Sunday Morning

Rita Braver is a national correspondent for CBS News and a senior correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning. She reports many of the broadcast's cover stories, and her assignments include a wide variety of topics ranging from politics to art to national trends.

Braver spent four years as CBS News' chief White House correspondent (1993-97), covering a broad range of domestic and foreign issues, including health care, crime, welfare reform, the government budget process and international relations. She covered Bill Clinton's 1996 presidential campaign and was a floor reporter at the 1996 Democratic National Convention.

Before that, Braver was CBS News law correspondent, reporting on the Supreme Court, the Justice Department and the FBI. She covered the Iran-Contra case, including the trials of former National Security Council officials Oliver North and John Poindexter. Braver also reported on issues including abortion, civil rights and liberties, drugs, organized crime and espionage.

She has won five Emmy Awards, including one for investigative reporting and two for coverage of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Braver received the Joan Barone Award presented by the Congressional Radio and Television Correspondents' Association, the Media Award of the National Association of Women Legislators, a 1998 Star award from American Women in Radio and Television, and the Washington Monthly Journalism Award for a report on the tactics federal prosecutors use and how damaging they can be to average citizens.

She is a member of the board of the International Women's Media Federation. She has also been named an Outstanding Mother by the National Mother's Day Committee.

Braver grew up at CBS News, having joined the organization's Washington bureau in 1972 as a news desk editor. She has been a producer and editor as well as a reporter, and her work has appeared on virtually every CBS News broadcast, including the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, CBS News This Morning, 48 Hours, Face the Nation, and Public Eye.

Braver began her career in broadcast journalism as a "copy girl" for WWL-TV, the CBS affiliate in New Orleans. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in political science. Braver and her husband, Robert Barnett, live in Washington, D.C., and have one daughter.