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ANN COMPTON
Correspondent, ABC News Radio
Ann Compton is now covering a sixth President for ABC News in a career that has taken her to the White House, Capitol Hill and through seven presidential campaigns. She is the National correspondent for ABC News Radio, based Washington, DC.
On September 11, 2001, Ms. Compton was the only broadcast reporter allowed to remain onboard Air Force One during the dramatic hours when President Bush was unable to return to Washington.
Weeks after the Watergate scandal came to an end, Ms. Compton became the first woman assigned to cover the White House on a full-time basis by a network television news organization, and she was one of the youngest to receive the assignment.
Reporting for all ABC News broadcasts, Ms. Compton has traveled around the globe and through all 50 states with presidents, vice presidents and first ladies. Twice during campaigns she was invited to serve as a panelist for presidential debates (1988 and 1992), and she was assigned as a floor reporter at the 1976 Republican and Democratic National Conventions.
In 2000 Ms. Compton was chief Washington correspondent for ABCNEWS.com, where she wrote and anchored a daily political column, "On Background."
Ms. Compton began her broadcasting career in Virginia, where an internship at Hollins College (now University) led to a full-time job reporting for WDBJ TV, a CBS affiliate in Roanoke. She established a State Capitol Bureau in Richmond for the station. In 1973 ABC News hired her, and she reported from New York until December 1974, when she was assigned to the White House.
Ms. Compton was part of the team awarded the prestigious Silver Baton Alfred I. duPont Columbia University Award for the network's coverage of September 11, 2001. Her coverage of September 11 was also recognized in ABC News' Emmy and Peabody awards. In June 2000, she was inducted into the Journalism Hall of Fame by the Society of Professional Journalists. She was chairman of the governing board of the Radio Television Correspondents Association in 1987-88, and served on the advisory board of the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center in New York. Ms. Compton says her most valued award is a golden statuette from the National Mothers' Day Committee naming her a Mother of the Year in 1988.
Ann Compton is married to Dr. William Hughes, a physician in Washington, DC, and they are the parents of three sons and a daughter.