Jim Wooten
— -- Since joining ABCNEWS in the summer of 1979, Jim Wooten has held a number of roles and filed stories from 40 countries and five continents. He is presently the network's Senior Correspondent and from his base in London contributes to World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Nightline, Good Morning America and other ABCNEWS broadcasts.
In 1994, Wooten's reports from Rwanda and Zaire for World News Tonight and Nightline won the Overseas Press Club Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award and the Joe Alex Morris Award from Harvard University for distinguished foreign reporting.
Since 1993, Wooten has spent considerable time in Bosnia reporting on the war between Muslims and Serbs in what was once Yugoslavia. He also covered the civil wars in El Salvador and Beirut, the Sandanista revolution in Nicaragua, Israel's invasion of Lebanon and racial unrest in South Africa.
He was the principal reporter for This Week with David Brinkley from that broadcast's premiere in 1981 until 1983. His weekly essays from around the world provided background and analysis for the popular Sunday program's interviews and discussions. He served for two years, from 1989 to 1991, as the network's Senate correspondent, reporting such major stories as the Bush Administration's unsuccessful struggle to have John Tower confirmed as Secretary of Defense and the marathon hearings on the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
In January and February of 1991, Wooten was a combat correspondent during the Gulf War, reporting on the U.S. Army's Third Armored Division and its advance through southern Iraq into Kuwait. A few weeks later, he was in northern Iraq, covering the Kurdish rebellion and its aftermath.
The 1992 presidential campaign was the seventh Wooten has covered, and his fourth as a correspondent for ABCNEWS. He reported from the podium at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in 1992, the 13th and 14th times he has done so.
During his tenure in London, he has returned frequently to Bosnia and Yugoslavia to cover the presence of U.S. troops there and outbreaks of violence in Kosovo.
Before joining ABCNEWS, Wooten had been on the staff of Esquire magazine; written a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer; and served as a bureau chief, national correspondent and White House correspondent for The New York Times.
He has won numerous awards for his work, including the Ernie Pyle Memorial Medal for his combat reporting on the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. He also won the Blue Pencil Award for Journalistic Excellence from Columbia University. He is the author of three books: Soldier, about Vietnam; Playing Around, about baseball and the Pittsburgh Pirates; and Dasher: The Roots and Rising of Jimmy Carter.
Wooten and his wife, Patience O'Connor, live in London. They have five daughters and four grandchildren.
