Jerry Bowen, a 30-Year veteran of CBS News, has retired from the network. Bowen joined CBS News in April 1977 as a correspondent in the Chicago bureau. After a stint in Rome for CBS, Bowen moved to Los Angeles in 1979 where he spent the next 27 years covering stories up and down the west coast.
“Jerry is among the best writers and storytellers of CBS News,” said
Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports. “He is known for his ability to come through with a beautifully crafted script and smooth-as-silk delivery under heavy pressure and tight deadlines.”
Bowen’s last day was Friday. He will continue to contribute to CBS News Sunday Morning.
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CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT JERRY BOWEN RETIRES
30-Year Veteran Will Continue to Contribute to CBS NEWS SUNDAY MORNING
CBS News Correspondent Jerry Bowen, who has been a CBS News correspondent for 30 years, retired Friday (12) from his full-time position. He will continue to contribute to CBS NEWS SUNDAY MORNING, which he has done for many years.
Bowen has been based in Los Angeles since 1979. He reports primarily for the CBS EVENING NEWS WITH KATIE COURIC and for CBS NEWS SUNDAY MORNING, to which he contributes profiles of celebrated and not-so-celebrated Americans. Bowen also contributes to other CBS News broadcasts.
“Jerry is among the best writers and storytellers of CBS News,” said Sean McManus, President, CBS News and Sports. “He is known, among many wonderful attributes, for his ability to come through with a beautifully crafted script and smooth-as-silk delivery under heavy pressure and tight deadlines. Jerry has continued the CBS News tradition of fine writing in a distinctive voice. I’m very pleased that Jerry will continue to lend that voice to SUNDAY MORNING, as he has done for nearly all of his 30 years here.”
In addition to covering most of the major stories in the western
United States for nearly three decades, he has reported extensively from some of the most remote areas of the world. In 2002, Bowen followed up reports in the 1990s from the Arctic Ocean off Alaska on climate change and global warming. In the summer of 1999, he and his crew were the only journalists invited aboard the emergency U.S. Air Force flight that air-dropped medical supplies to Dr. Gerri Nielsen, the trapped, cancer-stricken doctor at the South Pole. Also in 1999, as he had done in 1991, Bowen led a CBS News team to Antarctica for a series of reports on scientific experiments and environmental concerns at the bottom of the world. In 2004, he returned to the Arctic to report on global warming research and tourism at the North Pole.
In 2006, Bowen reported from Alaska on the serious threat posed to coastal villages losing ground to more frequent violent storms caused by the warming climate. And his award-winning series of reports on Alaska’s world famous McNeil River brown bears helped reverse a state plan to open their habitat to trophy hunters.
Bowen has also covered major stories closer to home, including the Columbia shuttle disaster, as well as the return to flight of the shuttle program and the safe landing of shuttle Discovery at California;s Edwards Air Force Base in 2005. He has reported extensively on NASA’s deep space research programs, including the explorations by the twin Mars rovers on the red planet, and the successful fly-by of the Cassini orbiter through the rings of Saturn.
California earthquakes, Arizona floods and record cold in Alaska are among the natural disasters he has covered. Bowen reported on the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of police accused in the beating of Rodney King. He also covered Ronald Reagan’s successful Presidential campaign in 1980 and, in 2004, the President’s death and burial at his Presidential library in California. During the 1980s, Bowen reported extensively on Mexican and Caribbean affairs, including the 1986 exile of Haitian dictator Francois Duvalier. His overseas assignments have included the overthrow of Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, the student revolt in Tiananmen Square and the opening of Siberia’s gulag system to the Western world following the fall of Communism.
Bowen served as a contributing correspondent for the CBS News magazine, “Street Stories” (1992).
Prior to his Los Angeles assignment, he was a correspondent in CBS News’ Rome bureau (1977-79), from where he provided extensive coverage of the Middle East, including the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and takeover by the Ayatollah Komeini. Bowen reported on Papal affairs–including the death of Pope Paul and the elections of Pope John Paul I and John Paul II–and covered the birth of the world’s first test tube baby in England.
He joined CBS News in April 1977 as a reporter in its Chicago bureau.
Previously, Bowen was a reporter/anchor/producer at WCCO-TV, the CBS Owned station in Minneapolis (1969-77). He was a reporter at KSTP radio and KSTP-TV Minneapolis (1968-69) and at WOI-TV (1966-68) and KASI Radio (1963-66), both in Ames, Iowa.
Bowen is the recipient of three Emmy Awards: for a 1993 segment on the Branch Davidian stand-off near Waco, Texas, on 48 HOURS; for a 1988 segment on L.A. street gangs on 48 HOURS; and for a 1982 economic report for the CBS EVENING NEWS.
He was born in Atlantic, Iowa. Bowen attended Iowa State University (1965-68) and was graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1973 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism. He and his wife of 38 years live in Los Angeles and have two adult sons and one grandson.