Greg Dobbs

He covered the Iranian revolution and occupation of the U.S. Embassy, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the civil war in Lebanon and the ejection of the PLO from Beirut, the Iran-Iraq war, political turmoil that led to the fall of the Iron Curtain, the civil war and deaths of IRA hunger-strikers in Northern Ireland, the assassination of Anwar Sadat in Egypt, and civil war in Zimbabwe. Nationally, his major stories included the Watergate scandal, the Native American occupation of Wounded Knee, the execution of Gary Gilmore, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Dobbs is the winner of two national Emmy Awards: “Best Spot News Coverage on a Network” and “Best Network Documentary.” He is the recipient of the “Distinguished Service Award” from the Society of Professional Journalists.

In 1992, ABC asked Dobbs to move to New York City from his home in Evergreen, Colorado, where he had settled with his wife and their two sons after returning to the U.S. from Europe. He declined the offer and resigned from ABC to begin a multi-faceted career as a radio talk show host (at KOA in Denver), newspaper opinion columnist for The Denver Post, and for six years a television moderator, hosting an Emmy Award-winning discussion program on Rocky Mountain PBS.

In 2003, Dobbs became senior correspondent for the television network HDNet. He once again began traveling around the world as a correspondent and producer of documentaries for “World Report.” His segments covered Agent Orange in Vietnam, terrorism in Lebanon, politics in Russia, the post-Apartheid era in South Africa, wealth in Dubai, autocracy in Venezuela, assisted suicide in Switzerland, dirty water in Indonesia, post-war recovery in Liberia, cocaine in Bolivia, PTSD in the U.S. military, extensive coverage from Israel and the Palestinian territories, and live reports, along with Dan Rather, on primary and general election nights in 2008. He also covered the U.S. space program, anchoring live from Florida for every space shuttle launch after the Columbia disaster.

Dobbs’s book Life in the Wrong Lane, published in 2008, is a vivid telling of all the weird and wacky things that happen to journalists even before they report the stories they’ve traveled to cover. Dobbs also is the author of a university-level textbook on writing for broadcast, Better Broadcast Writing, Better Broadcast News, created from curriculum he developed while teaching at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

A native of San Francisco, Dobbs has been married to Carol Walker Dobbs for almost forty years. Their sons, Jason and Alex, born in England and France, respectively, traded a view of the Eiffel Tower for the Colorado Rockies as children and after earning their university degrees, became professional skiers. Greg taught them to ski black diamonds and has been trying to keep up ever since.

Public Speaker from Greg Dobbs on Vimeo.

The Middle East. There are plenty of ivory tower experts on the Middle East, from the worlds of diplomacy and think tanks, but they have not spent much time with their boots on the ground.

NASA and our future in space. The United States has a future in space, and the space shuttle program was shuttered to free up the money to pursue it.

Russia on the World Stage. After decades of Iron rule, citizens of the former Soviet Union were given freedoms they never dreamt they’d have— free speech, free elections, free political parties, and so forth. But it didn’t all last. Why not?

The New Media. In short, because of the proliferation of news sources, reliable or not, the old media has a much smaller piece of the pie than it used to have.

Where We Ought to Watch— a tour of the world, based on more than 40 years as a journalist with boots on the ground.