Steve Kroft Biography

Few journalists have had the influence and notoriety that Steve Kroft's work on 60 Minutes has had over the last two decades. In September 1989, the five-time Peabody Award winner presented his debut report for the show; the 2017-18 season is his 29th on 60 Minutes. In January 2017, Kroft conducted Barack Obama's final interview as president. He also spoke with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on policy differences between his country and the United States. His 2016 reporting about the top-secret 28 pages of a US intelligence dossier cast new light on Saudi Arabia's complicity in the 9/11 attacks. He also gave the first broadcast interview with Iranian President Rouhani following the signing of the nuclear deal with the US. Kroft broke the tale of Jack Barsky, a Cold War Soviet spy who told him about residing in the United States unnoticed for nearly a decade. His discussion on rapid trading with author Michael Lewis created ripples on Wall Street. In 2013, an RTNDA Murrow Award was given to a study on the Stuxnet computer worm, which hacked Iran's nuclear program. Kroft's fascinating interview with former nurse Charles Cullen, who some think killed hundreds, was the first time a serial murderer appeared on 60 Minutes in the show's 47-year history. His 2013 study on America's failure to treat mental disease came on the heels of a string of horrific shootings, which were frequently connected to mental illness. It earned him his 12th Emmy nomination. Several additional Kroft tales are among the most memorable in the broadcast's history, beginning with his 1992 interview with then-Gov. Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary - a pivotal event in that year's presidential campaign that was viewed by almost 34 million people. His interview with Barack and Michelle Obama, the first African-American president of the United States, and his wife in November 2008 had the highest television audience of the year to that date, with over 25 million people. In 1990, Kroft's coverage from the still-radioactive Chernobyl nuclear power plant was a classic 60 Minutes moment. In 1994, he returned to Chernobyl and became the first American journalist to inside the damaged reactor building. Other memorable 60 Minutes stories include the only television interview with Woody Allen during his bitter custody battle with Mia Farrow; a report on alleged jury tampering in the O. J. Simpson murder case; and his investigation of Saddam Hussein's hidden financial assets, which attracted worldwide attention. Kroft's 60 Minutes report on insider trading in the United States Congress in late 2011 prompted the passage of Senate and House versions of the STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge), which prohibits members of Congress from engaging in financial market trading based on nonpublic information learned while serving in Congress. He also broke two of the year's greatest news stories, obtaining President Barack Obama's sole interview on the assassination of Osama bin Laden and proving that Greg Mortenson lied in his best-selling book, "Three Cups of Tea," and exaggerated the accomplishments of his organization. Kroft received the Radio, Television, and Digital News Group's (RTDNA) Paul White Award in 2010, the industry's top accolade from the industry's biggest peer association. Simultaneously, he became the first and only 60 Minutes journalist to win two Peabody Awards in the same year. One was for a report about the vulnerability of critical infrastructures like the power grid to computer hackers, and the other was for a story about the massive sums of money spent on prolonging the lives of dying Americans, bringing his total number of Peabodys to five. In the same amazing year, he received a George Polk award for his article tying large fluctuations in oil prices to Wall Street speculation, as well as an Emmy for his coverage on increasing Islamic militancy in Pakistan. His collaborative research with the Washington Post uncovering the fundamentally defective forensic science of gunshot lead analysis received the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award earlier in 2008, one of four major accolades he received in a year. He received the Sigma Delta Chi award for the same article, as well as the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for his investigation into the loss of more than $500 million from Iraq's coffers. He also earned Quinnipiac University's Fred Friendly First Amendment Prize, one of the industry's most coveted honors. In September 2003, he received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy for his extensive body of work. And one of his best investigative pieces, "All in the Family," a story on the conflicts of interest between military contractors and the government in contract awards, garnered him a Peabody Award in April 2003. Kroft's 60 Minutes reports have been recognized by award committees since his first season, with an Emmy in his second season for the Chernobyl story and his first Peabody in his third season for "Friendly Fire," which investigated the tragic, yet common, occurrence of soldiers accidentally killing their own men. In 1998, two of Kroft's 60 Minutes segments received another Peabody Award: "Veronica Guerin," about an Irish reporter killed down by drug dealers, and "West Side Story," about ethnic conflict changed into racial peace. His article "America's Worst Nightmare" (Oct. 2000) on Pakistan's political instability, nuclear weapons, and linkages to Islamic terrorist organizations such as the Taliban earned him his first Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for a work the committee described as "strikingly prescient." Before joining 60 Minutes, Kroft was a principal correspondent on the CBS News magazine "West 57th," after serving as a foreign correspondent for CBS News based in London, where he covered international terrorism in Europe and the Middle East, including the TWA hijacking in Beirut, the Abu Nidal terrorist cell's massacres at Rome and Vienna airports, and the Achille Lauro hijacking. He also covered the Beirut conflict and the sectarian strife in Northern Ireland. His CBS Evening News coverage on Indira Gandhi's assassination received an Emmy Award. Kroft worked as a journalist in the CBS News Miami office (1983) and traveled widely in Latin America and the Caribbean before to his position in London. During that time, he covered the US invasion of Grenada and the civil war in El Salvador, when he did one of his most famous interviews: while speaking to a soldier on video, a sniper's bullet struck inches from the man's head, suddenly interrupting the interview. Kroft joined CBS News in January 1980 as a correspondent in New York's Northeast department. In May 1981, he was made a correspondent and assigned to the Dallas bureau (January 1981-May 1983). Kroft worked as a reporter for WPLG-TV Miami, WJXT-TV Jacksonville, Fla., and WSYR-TV Syracuse, N.Y. before joining CBS News. He was born on August 22, 1945, in Kokomo, Indiana, and earned a bachelor of science degree from Syracuse University in 1967. In 1992, he received the George Arents Medal, the university's highest distinction bestowed to an alumnus. Kroft got an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Indiana University and a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He worked as a journalist and photographer for Pacific Stars and Stripes while serving with the United States Army in Vietnam. Jennet Conant, a journalist, is Kroft's wife. They have a son, John Conant Kroft, and live in New York.

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