Robert Hager has been an NBC News Correspondent for 35 years. For the last two decades, he has been based in Washington, D.C. Earlier he was a foreign correspondent, initially in Vietnam and then based in Berlin, covering Moscow, Europe and the Middle East.
In every year since the early 1970s, he has ranked in the top 10 among major network correspondents based on frequency of appearances on the evening news (he was ranked first in 1996 and 1997 and second in 1998 according to an annual survey by the University of Southern Illinois.)
In a magazine interview, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw said of Hager: “When I name my all-time all-star team, he will be on the first string. He’s indefatigable, resourceful and adds insight into every piece he does.”
The New York newspaper Newsday called him “one of the most visible correspondents on network TV.” The American Journalism Review referred to him as a “premier general assignment correspondent.”
Hager is best known for aviation coverage. He has reported from the scene of virtually every major crash in the last 20 years, including the SwissAir accident in Nova Scotia, the TWA explosion off Long Island, and the downing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
He led NBC’s coverage at the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City and reported “live” from Miami during the devastating Hurricane Andrew and “live” from Charleston, S.C., during Hurricane Hugo.
Among combat assignments, in addition to Vietnam, he covered the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, the revolution which overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979, and sectarian strife in Northern Ireland.
Hager won an Emmy in 1990 and is a member of the Silver Circle honor society of journalists in Washington.
Before joining NBC, he spent several years with WRC, the network’s local station in Washington D.C., and before that worked for stations in the North Carolina cities of Charlotte, Raleigh, and Lexington.
Hager was raised in Woodstock, Vt., and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1960. His wife, Honore, is from Rutland, Vt. They have three daughters and five grandchildren.