Sharyl Attkisson (born 1961) is an American journalist and television correspondent. She hosts the Sinclair Broadcast Group TV show Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.
Attkisson is a five-time Emmy Award winner, and a Radio Television Digital News Association (RTNDA) Edward R. Murrow Award recipient. She was formerly an investigative correspondent in the Washington bureau for CBS News and a substitute anchor for the CBS Evening News and then went to The Daily Signal, a conservative political news website.
Attkisson resigned from CBS News on in 2014, after 21 years with the network. She later wrote the book Stonewalled, in which she alleged that CBS News failed to give sufficient coverage of Barack Obama controversies, such as the 2012 Benghazi attack. Attkisson has received criticism for publishing stories suggesting a possible link between vaccines and autism, a claim that has been rejected by the scientific community.
Early life and education
Attkisson, née Thompson, was born in Sarasota, Florida, into a family of seven children. She attended Wilkinson Elementary and Riverview High School. Her father was a lawyer, but she spent most of her life with her stepfather, an orthopedic surgeon. Attkisson attended the University of Florida, graduating in 1982 with a degree in broadcast journalism from the College of Journalism and Communications.
Career
Attkisson began her career in broadcast journalism as a reporter at WUFT-TV, the PBS station in Gainesville, Florida in 1982. She later worked as an anchor and reporter at WTVX-TV Fort Pierce/West Palm Beach, Florida from 1982–1985, WBNS-TV, the CBS affiliate in Columbus, Ohio from 1985–86, and WTVT in Tampa, Florida (1986–1990).
1990s
From 1990 to 1993, Attkisson was an anchor for CNN, and also served as a key anchor for CBS covering space exploration in 1993. Attkisson left CNN in 1993, moving to CBS, where she anchored the television news broadcast CBS News Up to the Minute until January 1995, then became an investigative correspondent based in Washington, D.C.
She served on the University of Florida's Journalism College Advisory Board (1993–1997) and was its chair in 1996. The University gave her an Outstanding Achievement Award in 1997. From 1996 to 2001, Attkisson hosted the PBS health-news magazine HealthWeek.
2000s
Attkisson received an Investigative Reporters and Editors (I.R.E.) Finalist award for Dangerous Drugs in 2000. In 2001, Attkisson received an Investigative Emmy Award nomination for Firestone Tire Fiasco from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
In 2002, she co-authored the college textbook Writing Right for Broadcast and Internet News. Later that same year she won an Emmy Award for her Investigative Journalism about the American Red Cross. Attkisson was part of the CBS News team that received RTNDA-Edward R. Murrow Awards in 2005 for Overall Excellence.
In 2006, Attkisson served as Capitol Hill correspondent for CBS, one of a small number of female anchors covering the 2006 midterms. Attkisson was a member of the CBS News team that received RTNDA-Edward R. Murrow Awards in 2008 for Overall Excellence.
In 2008, when Hillary Clinton said she dodged sniper fire in Bosnia, Attkisson contradicted her. Attkisson was on the trip with her and refuted Clinton's account; the trip to Bosnia was risky, Attkisson said, but there were no bullets to dodge. The Washington Post also expressed skepticism and reported that there were no 'documented security threats' included in a review of 100 news articles from the time. The day after Attkisson's report on the CBS Evening News, Clinton admitted there was no sniper fire and said she "misspoke".
In 2009, Attkisson won an Investigative Emmy Award for Business and Financial Reporting for her exclusive reports on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the bank bailout.
2010s and 2020s
In 2010, Attkisson was nominated for two Emmy Awards for investigations into members of Congress and waste of tax dollars. In July 2011, Attkisson was again nominated, for Follow the Money investigations into Congressional travel to the Copenhagen climate summit, and problems with aid to Haiti earthquake victims.