Scott Pelley Bio

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Scott Pelley was named a correspondent for 60 Minutes II in June 1999.

Prior to that, he had been CBS News' chief White House correspondent since August 1997. During that time, he covered the investigation of President Clinton, breaking many original stories in the process. Pelley also reported on a wide array of domestic and foreign stories from the White House, including Clinton Administration trips to South America, Africa, China and Europe.

Pelley had been a correspondent based in Dallas since 1990, having joined CBS News a year earlier as a reporter in New York. He covered many of the biggest domestic stories, including the Oklahoma City bombing and the trial of Timothy McVeigh, the bombing of the World Trade Center, the Los Angeles Northridge earthquake, the Branch Davidian raid near Waco, Texas, Hurricanes Andrew and Hugo, and the space program's shuttle missions. Pelley also served as a political correspondent assigned to the 1992 presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and Ross Perot.

In addition to his domestic reporting, Pelley has covered the news from many hot spots around the globe. In 1990, Pelley was assigned for a year to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, during the Persian Gulf conflict. He covered Baghdad and later broadcast live reports during Iraqi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia. Pelley joined the troops of the 18th Airborne Corps for combat coverage of the invasion of Iraq and the liberation of Kuwait.

He received a 1996 Emmy Award for his work on the TWA Flight 800 disaster and a 1994 Emmy for his reporting on the Branch Davidian conflict. Pelley was honored with the Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Journalism Award for his reports on a midair jumbo jet collision outside Delhi, India.

Before joining CBS News, he was a producer/reporter for WFAA-TV Dallas (1982-89)for KXAS-TV Dallas (1978-81), and for KSEL-TV Lubbock, Texas (1975-78). Pelley began his journalism career at age 15 as a copy boy at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal newspaper.

He was born July 28, 1957 in San Antonio, Texas. Pelley attended journalism school at Texas Tech University. He and his wife, Jane Boone Pelley, have a son and a daughter.