Dean is the author of two books and writer and director[7] of American Medevac, a documentary which reconnects medevac crew members with some of the service members they had rescued during the Vietnam War.[8]
Dean received numerous awards for his reporting, including a National Emmy Award, an Overseas Press Club Award and a UPI Golden Mike.[9]
In 1983, the television studio and publications center at the high school was named the Morton Dean Television Studio[17] in his honor and in 2011, Dean was presented the key to the city of Fall River by former mayor Willian Flanagan.[18]
Early career
Dean began his career in 1957 as a reporter[19] and later news director at Westchester County, New York, radio station WVIP which became the flagship station for the Herald Tribune Radio Network, a group of suburban AM and FM stations[20] in New York State. In 1960, Dean was program director of WVOX New Rochelle.[21] From 1961[22] to 1964, he was a reporter for the radio station WBZ in Boston.[23] In 1962, he won a UPI Broadcasters Association of Massachusetts Award.[24]
In 1967, he moved to the CBS network and later succeeded Walter Cronkite[26] as the principal space correspondent for CBS covering the U.S. space program, national politics and the Vietnam War.
Vietnam
News correspondent Morton Dean in Vietnam in 1971 during a medevac mission for CBS Evening News
In 1971, during a six-month assignment in Vietnam for CBS Evening News, Dean covered a combat medevac mission under fire. With cameraman Greg Cooke, they filmed a seven-minute segment that aired four days later on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.[5]
A feature article about the medevac rescues during the Vietnam War and his experience as a news correspondent flying on these missions, was published in Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine. In 2015, Dean and Cooke inspired by the memory of those events in 1971 produced and directed a documentary, American Medevac,[27] which reunites the medevac crew with some of the service members they had rescued in 1971.
CBS News Weekend Anchor
In late 1975, Dean was named anchor of the CBS Sunday Night News,[28] and later in 1976, moved to the CBS Sunday Evening News until 1984.[29] He also anchored weekday afternoon and evening editions of the 90-second Newsbreak updates.[25]
Starting in early 1985, Dean anchored the Independent Network News newscast for about three years.
In 1986, Dean was one of forty semi-finalists[36] in the "Journalist in Space Program" (cancelled following the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster) as a candidate from Connecticut.[37]
In 1990, Dean spent more than three months covering news events in the Mideast and was the first television journalist to report from inside Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion.[41]
For World News Tonight, he reported from the Middle East during the Gulf War and was on the scene of the first ground battle of Operation Desert Storm in January 1991.[42]
In 1993, Dean was lead reporter on the first World Trade Center bombing by terrorists. Dean was the first and only newsperson to see and report from inside the garage where the truck bomb detonated and later covered the investigation into the attack.[47]
Good Morning America
In 1993, Dean became the news anchor on ABC’s "Good Morning America” and presented the newscasts on the morning show until 1996.[48]
In 1999, Dean reported from Kosovo for 30 days during the NATO air attacks during the Kosovo War which helped ABC News win an Emmy for its coverage of the conflict.[50]
In 2000, when a deadly terror bomb blasted the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, he was dispatched as ABC's lead reporter.[51]
He reported and hosted a monthly 60-minute cable network science show and occasionally appeared on National Public Radio "Morning Edition” commenting on politics and terrorism.[53]
Dean is a freelance writer, occasionally writing on subjects of personal interest, including stories about the Boston Red Sox[54] and his latest journey to Cuba, 50 years after his 1959 interview with Fidel Castro.
He is a member of the Vietnam War Commemoration Commission created by Presidential proclamation whose goal is to embrace those who served during the Vietnam era and also does pro bono work for Autism Speaks, the world largest autism awareness organization.[55]
Dean has received many awards for his reporting, including a National Emmy, an Overseas Press Club Award and a UPI Golden Mike Award.[9]
In 1962, he won a UPI Broadcasters Association of Massachusetts Award for aiding in the capture of a murder suspect.[9]
In 1976, Dean was part of the CBS News team that the Overseas Press Club, New York awarded the Radio Interpretation Award for Journalistic Achievement for "America in Vietnam".[59]
In 1981 at CBS News Sunday Morning, he received an Outstanding Documentary Program Emmy for "Louis is 13".[60]
Dean was nominated for a national Emmy Award for his reporting the gun battle in Kosovo involving U. S. Marines who were pinned down by snipers.[61]
In 2000, he was part of the ABC news team which won an Emmy Award for Outstanding News and Documentary Program Achievement for ABC 2000: The Millennium.[62]
Books
Hello World! (Co-Author), 1978.[63] The Return to Glory Days (Co-Author), 1997.[64]
Dean's clowning career began on a lark after he finished a story on the women of the circus for CBS Sunday Morning. While thanking the public relations people for their help, one said, "Anything we can do for you, just let us know." He nodded and left. He took the elevator down, then he took it right back up again and said, "I'd like to try to be a clown.
Dean performs occasionally as a Ringling clown. "It's my Walter Mitty side," he told an interviewer.[65]
Quotes
"I try to get as much background and history as I can, says Dean. "I try to find my own sources. I try to make an extra phone call. One way or another I try to find a nugget of information that might give me an edge."[66]
"I’ve made a career out of asking dumb questions. I mean, that’s our job—not to prove how smart we are but to elicit answers, and I think you sometimes have to ask what appears to be a dumb question. I am not out there to impress the audience that I have brilliant questions all the time. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that the idea is to get some news at the other end of the question."[66]
"I think that is the most difficult part of this business—covering a breaking story live…You are often out there ‘naked’ and you have to resist the pressure to give information that you’re not certain of and to give your own personal thoughts as opposed to what’s really going on."[66]
