Bill Plante Biography
Bill Plante is a CBS News senior journalist and correspondent who has been with the network since 1964. He most recently worked for CBS as a Senior White House Correspondent, reporting on a regular basis for CBS This Morning and the CBS Evening News.
How old is Bill Plante? – Age
He is 84 years old as of 14 January 2022. He was born in 1938 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Bill Plante Family – Education
He is the stepfather of Chris Plante, a syndicated radio talk show host. Plante earned a bachelor’s degree in humanities from Loyola University in 1959 and went on to Columbia University to study political science.
Bill Plante Wife
He has been married twice. He is married to Robin Smith. The couple married in 1987. He was previously married to Barbara Barnes Ortieg and separated in1969. He has two biological children; Dan Plante and Micheal Plante.
Bill Plante Career
He was the State Department correspondent for CBS News during the first Bush administration (1989-92). Plante’s work may be found on all CBS News platforms, including “CBS This Morning” and “CBS Evening News.” Since December 1976, Plante has been based in CBS News’ Washington bureau. Since 1968, he has covered every presidential election. He covered general and off-year elections, as well as national political conventions, before his first White House assignment. He covered Hubert Humphrey’s and Richard Nixon’s campaigns in 1968. Plante’s tasks during the 1972 campaign included covering candidates George McGovern and Sargent Shriver.
He covered Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign in the summer of 1976 and subsequently Walter Mondale’s vice-presidential campaign in the fall. Plante covered the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in 1988 as a floor reporter.
He covered the President’s activities and key international excursions during the Reagan presidency, including the momentous summit conference in Moscow with Mikhail Gorbachev. Plante was a member of the CBS News crew that won an Emmy Award in 1986 for their coverage of the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. He was also a member of the CBS News crew that earned an Emmy Award for its coverage of Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign. He covered Secretary of State James Baker’s journeys to the Middle East before and after the Gulf War, the evolving US-Soviet relationship during that time, and the 1991 Middle East peace talks, among other things, while at the State Department.
He was the host of “CBS Sunday Night News” (1988-95). However, Plante’s reporting has not been limited to politics. In 1979, he covered both the Skylab disaster and Pope John Paul II’s visit to the United States. Plante covered the Iranian revolution earlier that year, following the Shah’s fall, and was one of two American journalists to cover a revolutionary trial in Teheran. For the “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite,” he was the reporter on a five-part series analyzing America’s criminal justice system in 1977. Plante joined CBS News in June 1964 as a New York-based reporter/assignment editor and worked as a journalist in the Chicago bureau from 1966 to 1976. He spent two of his four tours of duty in Vietnam at that time, reporting on bombing raids over North Vietnam, the Vietnamization and pacification efforts in the south, and the overthrow of regimes in Vietnam and Cambodia. Plante also covered the Mississippi and Alabama civil rights movements, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic march from Selma to Montgomery.
Plante’s recent White House coverage includes President Barack Obama’s first visit to Myanmar (Burma), as well as his visits to Indonesia and Korea. He also covered the recent fiscal cliff talks, the sex scandal involving Secret Service personnel assigned to protect President Obama when he was at a meeting in Cartagena, Colombia, and the 40th anniversary of the Watergate incident. On the 50th anniversary of NASA’s launch of Friendship 7, Plante gave the first peek inside the elite Washington, D.C. hideaway that functions as a hotel for previous presidents and interviewed astronaut John Glenn.
Furthermore, in March 2012, Plante returned to Selma, Alabama to cover a commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic march. On the 50th anniversary of the United States’ first orbital flight, he spoke with retired astronaut and US Senator John Glenn. He has won numerous prestigious broadcast journalism honors. He won an Emmy for his investigative report on the US-Soviet wheat trade broadcast on the “CBS Evening News” in addition to Emmys for his coverage of Princess Diana’s murder, the Reagan-Gorbachev summit, and Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign (1972). Plante received an Overseas Press Club Award in 1971 for his coverage of the India-Pakistan War, and another in 1975 for Best Radio Spot News Reporting for his coverage of the fall of the South Vietnamese and Cambodian administrations, as well as the evacuation of American forces.
Bill Plante Salary
He earns an annual salary of $290,000.
Bill Plante Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $2 Million.
