Cynthia McFadden Biography

Cynthia McFadden (born May 27, 1956) is an anchor and correspondent for ABC News who currently co-anchors Nightline and occasionally appears on ABC News specials Primetime.

Biography

Education

Born in Lewiston, Maine, McFadden graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine in 1978. Afterwards, she received her Juris Doctorate degree from Columbia Law School in New York City in 1984.

Career

Early Career and time as ABC News correspondent

From 1984 to 1991, McFadden was the executive producer of Fred Friendly's Media and Society seminars based at Columbia, many of which were broadcast on PBS. She then joined the Courtroom Television Network as an anchor and producer in 1991, its inaugural year. After working there for several years, she joined ABC News in 1994 as the network's legal correspondent, covering amongst other subjects the OJ Simpson Trial. She became a correspondent for Primetime in 1996.

Promotion to Anchor

McFadden became an anchor of Primetime in 2004 and, having previously substituted for Ted Koppel on several occasions, an anchor of Nightline on November 28, 2005, along with Martin Bashir and Terry Moran, following the longtime anchor's final broadcast. Bashir left the program due to fallout from credibility problems from the disputed and controversial reports on singer Michael Jackson and was replaced by Bill Weir in 2010. The three tend to anchor in shifts, leading the show by themselves every third night. Notably, while Nightline was threatened with cancellation in 2002 under Koppel's long form journalism format, it has seen a resurgence in its ratings and prominence after switching to more celebrity topics, pop culture and entertainment news over the last few years, often competing for higher numbers with the Late Show with David Letterman. As anchor, she has conducted a number of significant interviews including ones with celebrities such as Clint Eastwood and Paul McCartney, past and present world leaders such as Pervez Musharraf and Tony Blair, and five with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Other work

Cynthia McFadden is also a contributor for wowOwow.com, a web site launched in 2008 for women to discuss culture, politics and gossip. She has additionally hosted or co-hosted a number of documentaries and specials on ABC.

McFadden is a Board Member at the IWMF (International Women's Media Foundation).

Personal

McFadden married Michael John Davies, editor and publisher of the Hartford Courant, on September 9, 1989; they were divorced in 1996. She has a son with Foreign Affairs editor James Hoge, Spencer Graham McFadden Hoge, who was born in 1998 and was named after the late actor, Spencer Tracy.

McFadden is also the executrix of the estate of longtime friend, Academy Award-winning actress Katharine Hepburn.

McFadden has Crohn's disease and has done public service announcements to raise awareness of the condition.

Awards

• George Foster Peabody Award
• Cine Golden Eagles (2)
• Ohio State Award
• Silver Gavels (2) from the American Bar Association
• Grand Award of the New York Festival
• Blue Ribbon of the American Film Festival
• Nominated for an Emmy