EMMY AWARD-WINNING NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT JOHN DANCY RECEIVES SHAPIRO FELLOWSHIP TO GW’s SCHOOL OF MEDIA AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS

WASHINGTON – John Dancy, former NBC News correspondent and four-time Emmy award-winner, joins The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs (SMPA) as the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Fellow for the 2002 fall semester. Recognized for his coverage both in Washington and overseas, Dancy will offer a semester-long seminar entitled “Foreign Correspondents and Foreign Policy.” 

“Dancy is not only a well-known and respected journalist, but a true student of the media and an accomplished teacher.  We can’t wait to bring him together with our students,” said Professor and SMPA Interim Director Jarol B. Manheim of the appointment.

In his thirty-year career at NBC News, Dancy covered every major beat in Washington and served twice as a foreign correspondent, based in Berlin, London, and Moscow. Dancy reported on four wars for NBC: the 1973 Middle East war, the 1974 Cyprus war between the Greeks and Turks, the beginning of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, and the 1994 struggle between Russian Army troops and Chechen rebels. 

In Washington, Dancy was senior White House correspondent during the presidency of Carter Administration, covered Congress during the Reagan years, and was chief diplomatic correspondent during the Bush administration. As congressional correspondent, Dancy covered the Iran-Contra hearings. By disclosing a secret but unclassified report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, he gave the nation its first comprehensive view of the Iran-Contra affair. He also anchored “NBC Nightly News,” “NBC News at Sunrise,” and “Meet the Press.”

On retiring from NBC in 1996, Dancy was named a fellow at Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy and from 1997 to 1998, he taught journalism at Duke University. Most recently, Dancy was a visiting professor of communications and director of international media studies at Brigham Young University where he moderated the university-produced PBS program, “Reporting the World.” Dancy also served in the Department of Defense as a senior advisor to the National Security Commission/21st Century and as a member of the board of visitors of the U.S. Regional Security Centers. 

Dancy received the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism, the Overseas Press Club’s Citation for Excellence, the Janus Award for business reporting, four national Emmys, and was the first television correspondent to receive the prestigious Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for coverage of Congress. He attended David Lipscomb University, and graduated in 1959 from Union University in his native Jackson, Tennessee. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Union in 1989. 

The Shapiro Fellowship program, funded by the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Charitable Trust, is designed to bring respected professionals to the School. The program provides students an opportunity to talk with active professionals who can give them advice, encourage them to think about issues, and help them create better careers for themselves.

The School of Media and Public Affairs, which has 17 full-time faculty, 300 undergraduate students and 25 graduate students, is committed to investigate and teach how ideas and information are communicated through the media and how media function as a central ingredient of a democracy. The School combines liberal arts education with professional skills, promoting a combination of theory and practice.

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