NBC’s Bob Dotson is first Stembler Visiting Professional
Bob Dotson’s stories reflect his rare approach to the news. While most reporters focus on life’s flat tires, he looks for something far more difficult to find — what keeps the other tires rolling. Dotson works the neglected streets of our cities, the small towns and dirt roads, searching for people who are practically invisible, the ones who change our lives but don’t take time to tweet and tell us about it. He has crisscrossed this country, four million miles, practically non-stop, searching for names we don’t know, but should, people with thoughtful solutions to problems we all face. Wisdom doesn’t always wear a suit.
Dotson’s signature series “American Story” on the TODAY Show has received more than one hundred honors, including eight national Emmys and a record six Edward R. Murrow Awards for “Best Network News Writing” from the Radio Television Digital News Association. The Society of Professional Journalists cited Dotson for his work in New Media. Some of his online columns and story videos trend worldwide. His program, El Capitan’s Courageous Climbers, was the winner of seven International Film and Video Festivals and was awarded documentary’s highest honor, the CINE Grand Prize.
His work has also won Grand Prizes from DuPont-Columbia, the National Press Photographers Association, the Robert F. Kennedy awards and this spring he joined Charles Kuralt and Walter Cronkite as the latest recipient of the William Allen White Foundation National Citation for journalistic excellence.
Dotson’s work has appeared on all of NBC News programs over the years. He also produced and wrote “Bob Dotson’s America,” a series of programs on the Travel Channel. His third book, American Story, a Lifetime Search for Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things, (Penguin/Random House) became a New York Times Best Seller.
Dotson sat down with Dean Susan King to discuss his career as a storyteller and his week at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media as the first Stembler Visiting Professional.