Harold Dow
News correspondent, 48 Hours
Harold Dow was named a correspondent for 48 Hours in May 1990. He had been a frequent contributor to the broadcast since its premiere on Jan. 19, 1988. In between those assignments, Dow was a correspondent for Street Stories, (January 1992 - August 1993). He has been based in the CBS News Northeast bureau headquarters in New York City since 1982.
Dow has specialized in law enforcement issues and the ongoing drug war on the domestic front, including reports for 48 Hours on Crack Street, the critically acclaimed 1986 documentary that led to the weekly series. He also has been a contributing correspondent for the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and CBS News Sunday Morning.
His reports for 48 Hours have included such varied topics as the homeless, AIDS, animal rights, divorce and assault weapons. He was recently the sole correspondent for a report about a young girl's crusade to free her parents from jail who she says were wrongfully convicted of child sexual abuse. Dow also had the first network interview with O.J. Simpson, following the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
He was honored with Ohio State and Peabody Awards for 48 Hours: "On Runaway Street" and a Robert F. Kennedy Award for 48 Hours: "No Place Like Home," a report on public housing. Dow won a third place award from the National Association of Black Journalists for his 48 Hours report, "Rhythm and Blues: Patti La Belle" (1997). He won an Emmy Award in 1996 for: 48 Hours "America's Mission," a report on the issues, divisions and risks surrounding the American Forces' move into Bosnia. He also won an Emmy Award in 1989 for his distinguished reporting on "Pan Am 103," a CBS News Special Report, and is an Edward R. Murrow Award recipient.
Dow was a contributing correspondent for the CBS News series, "Verdict." He had been based in New York since September 1982, when he was named a co-anchor/interviewer on CBS News Nightwatch, which premiered the following month. He remained on Nightwatch until the end of 1983, when the broadcast relocated to Washington, D.C. Dow had been based at the CBS News Los Angeles bureau as a correspondent (1977-82) and a reporter (1973-77). He joined CBS News in 1972 as a broadcast associate.
Highlights of Dow's reporting career include the return of POWs from Vietnam and the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst, with whom he had an exclusive interview in December 1976, the same month he won an Operation Push Excellence in Journalism Award. He also reported from South Africa following the release of Nelson Mandela.
Before joining CBS News, Dow had been an anchor-reporter at Theta Cable TV in Santa Monica, California. He was also a freelance reporter for KCOP-TV Los Angeles, a news anchor for WPAT Radio in Paterson, New Jersey, and a reporter, co-anchor and talk show host for KETV Omaha, Nebraska.
Dow was born Sept. 28, 1947 in Hackensack, New Jersey. He attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He and his wife, Kathleen, have three children.