FORMER CBS CORRESPONDENT, MITCHELL KRAUSS,
TO GIVE “MIDDLE EAST UPDATE” TO Y's MEN NOVEMBER 8TH
On Thursday, November 8th, Mitchell Krauss, former CBS Correspondent,
will speak to the Y's Men of Westport/Weston. His subject is “A Middle
East Update.” The meeting begins at 10AM at the Saugatuck Congregational
Church, 245 Post Road East .
After more than 25 years at CBS News, correspondent Mitchell Krauss
left the CBS newsroom in 1997. He had joined the network in 1972 as
a special correspondent for the radio division, but soon moved to CBS
Television as its first full-time Economic correspondent.
During the seventies, Krauss covered the Arab Oil Embargo, OPEC, a
variety of economic summit meetings and the Wall Street Journal among
other assignments. He was a frequent contributor to the CBS Evening
News with Walter Cronkite along with the Morning News and Weekend news
programs and hourly news broadcasts on the CBS Radio Network.
Krauss also anchored CBS News coverage of the Munich Olympic Massacre
for which he won an Overseas Press Club award. Later in the decade
he covered the return of American POW's from Vietnam, the seizure
of the US Embassy in Tehran and the long captivity of the American
diplomats. He was also the correspondent for several award winning
CBS reports including the “Food Crisis” which was filmed in the US
and Mexico.
Early in the eighties, Krauss was named CBS News Correspondent in
Cairo where he covered a wide range of Middle East news stories. Among
them, the Iran-Iraq war, security talks in Saudi Arabia and the 40th
anniversary of the Battle of El Alamein. He was also present as Israel
withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and when Israel and Egyptian leaders
held summit meetings on the Middle East peace concerns.
Krauss was an eyewitness to the assassination of Egyptian President
Anwar Sadat. He was wounded in crossfire as he provided the first broadcast
coverage of the shooting. Later, he reported on Sadat's funeral and
the early days of Hosni Mubarak's presidency.
After returning to CBS News headquarters in New York, Krauss covered
a wide range of special events including political campaigns, conventions,
elections and space shuttle launches. He also served as a CBS News
United Nations correspondent and as a Wall Street Journal reporter.
In the Nineties, Krauss covered UN debates on Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti
and Iraq along with the UN's 50th anniversary. He reported on Operation
Gulf Storm and hosted a series of special reports on the Gulf War.
Among domestic stories, Krauss anchored three days of marathon coverage
for the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearings. He was in
Hawaii with President Clinton for coverage of ceremonies marking the
50th anniversary of the end of World War two.
In 1992, Krauss received an Ohio State University Achievement of Merit
Award for his part in writing and narrating a series of CBS Radio Network
reports entitled “Islam: Path of the Prophet”. In his final years at
CBS News, Krauss anchored the News on the Hour and CBS News Updates
on the CBS Radio Network.
Before joining CBS News, Krauss spent six years with WNET/Channel
13, the public television station in New York, where he anchored the
nightly hour-long news and interview broadcast “Newsfront” which preceeded
the MacNeil Leher News Hour. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for
his work on the program. Krauss was also executive producer and host
of the weekly media review magazine “Another Look”.
Early in the sixties, Krauss won a George Foster Peabody award for
his United Nations coverage on Radio New York Worldwide, a commercial
short wave station beamed to Europe and Latin America. In addition,
he received citations from the United Press, The Freedom Foundation
and Sigma Delta Chi, the national journalism society for “Outstanding
contributions to International Understanding through Broadcast Journalism”.
Krauss spent the fifties in Philadelphia radio where he handled news
and other programs on classical music station WFLN and later as news
director for station WIP. He began his active career as a part-time
staff member at WQXR, the radio station of the New York Times.
Krauss has been active in several trade groups. He was President of
the Association of Radio and Television News Analysts and the Economic
News Broadcasters Association. In Cairo, he was a board member of
the Foreign Press Association.
He is now Chairman of the Ambassador's Roundtable, a foreign policy
group that hosts meetings with world and national leaders. It is a
Stamford based group covering the New York suburban area and counties
of Westchester and Fairfield. Krauss is also an active member of the
United Nations Correspondence Association.
A native of New York City, Krauss earned his Bachelor of Arts degree
at New York University and a Master's degree at the University of Pennsylvania.
In the early fifties he served in the US Army in Korea and later in
Japan where he edited a division newspaper at Stars and Stripes headquarters
in Tokyo.
He and his wife Elisabeth live in Stamford and have two children,
Jennifer and David.
For more information about the Y's Men, contact Bill Meyer, Membership Chairman at 226-3704 or Bob Fatherley, President at 454-3653 or visit their website: www.ysmenwestportweston.org