| John Charles Hockenberry John was born on June 4, 1956 in Dayton, Ohio. He is the oldest of five children of Jack and Nancy Hockenberry. He and his family lived in Rochester, Binghamton, and Syracuse, New York and Grand Rapids, Michigan. He attended the University of Chicago from 1975-1977, majoring in mathematics. On February 28, 1976 he was hitchhiking to Massachusetts and was involved in an auto accident on Interstate 80, near Clearfield, PA. He was treated in a local hospital for a fractured skull and broken ribs, shoulder and collarbone. His most serious injury was to his spine, resulting in paralysis from mid-chest down. He began his rehab at a hospital in Pennsylvania and completed it in Grand Rapids, Michigan, near his family's home. He attended the University of Oregon from 1977-1979, majoring in piano and French harpsichord. John's career in journalism began "accidentally" in 1980, when he volunteered at a public radio station in Oregon "and never left". He covered such stories as the aftermath of the eruption of Mount St. Helens in WA state. In 1981 he began working in Washington, DC on NPR's "All Things Considered" and was named NPR's Chicago bureau correspondent in 1983. While in Chicago, he was one of 40 finalists for NASA's planned "Journalist in Space" program, aimed at selecting a journalist to travel on the space shuttle. Because of the Challenger disaster in January 1986, NASA barred civilians from space flights and the program was scratched. In 1986, John returned to NPR in Washington, DC and hosted "Weekend Edition Saturday". He went on assignment to the Middle East in the spring of 1988. From 1988-1990 he reported from Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. John learned to speak (he has modestly described it as "pathetically") both Hebrew and Arabic. He returned to the US and in 1990 he hosted NPR's "Heat", which ran far too briefly and was canceled for lack of funding, leaving a strong impression on all who heard and loved it. He returned to Israel in January 1991 during the Persian Gulf War. At the end of the war in March of that year, he rented and rode a donkey to get his story from the Kurdish refugees in a small mountain town near the border between Turkey and Iraq. In the fall of 1991, he returned to Washington, DC to host NPR's "Talk of the Nation". He was hired by ABC News in August 1992 to work as a correspondent on their TV magazine show, "Day One". He covered stories in locations as far-ranging as Somalia, Afghanistan, Russia, Texas, and LA. Shortly after the cancellation of "Day One" in 1995, John was hired by NBC News to work for "Dateline NBC", a position he still holds. Additionally, from the time MSNBC went on the air in 1996 through August 1997, he hosted "Edgewise", a wonderfully eclectic talk show/film festival format that deserved a far longer run than it got. John has also appeared in a variety of hosting roles on MSNBC and CNBC. From December 1998 until July 1999, John hosted "Hockenberry", a nightly one-hour program that covered "politics to pop culture". Its incredibly brief run and sudden demise mystified all of John's fans. John's past awards include: The Champion Award from the Amos Tuck Business School, The Benton Fellowship Award in Broadcast Journalism, The Unity in Media Award, and The Bernard Pozner Memorial Journalism Award. He has won two Peabody Awards and two Emmys. In 1998 John received the Freedom of the Human Spirit Award. In May 1998 he was named to the VSA Board of Directors.
John and his wife, Alison Craiglow Hockenberry, live in New York City with their two (count 'em, two) sets of twins.
Want to know more? Join all those who sing the praises of John's memoir, "Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of Independence" -- buy it, read it. You won't be able to put it down! (If you are unable to find it in your local bookstore, it is readily available from your favorite online bookseller.) |