John Hockenberry
John Hockenberry joined NBC in 1996 as a correspondent for Dateline NBC and continued to report for the Peacock Network through 2005. During his nine-year tenure, he matched the three Peabody Awards already received for his radio work with three Emmys (for a total of four) for stories on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the horrors and redemption of a life with schizophrenia, and a gripping profile of corrupt cult leader Fredrick Lenz. Hockenberry conducted the first and only candid on-camera interview with a family member of two of the 9/11 hijackers in February of 2002.
Hockenberry’s work has included an hour-long documentary on the tragedy of the medically uninsured and his investigative work has scrutinized pharmaceutical industry scandals and discrimination against people with disabilities in employment and housing.
While covering breaking news at home and overseas, Hockenberry was also part of live, interactive storytelling segments that allowed the television audience to participate for the first time in a story in real-time. Being a part of NBC’s laboratory for new types of intelligent content has been his signature, from pioneering new kinds of content in the groundbreaking MSNBC show, Edgewise, to the nightly on-location cable talk show, Hockenberry, which distinguished NBC News in its coverage of the crisis in the Balkans. There was also the innovative one-of-a-kind blog-cast live from NBC offices that enhanced the network’s coverage of the 2000 election and anticipated many of the Internet-related developments in politics in 2004.
Hockenberry is also the author of Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs and Declarations of Independence (Hyperion), a memoir of life as a foreign correspondent and overcoming personal challenges. In 1996, Hockenberry performed "Spokeman," the one-man, off-Broadway show based on his book. A River Out of Eden (Doubleday) followed and was Hockenberry’s first novel.
Hockenberry has also reported for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, Metropolis Magazine, Wired, and NPR where the series, The DNA Files received an unprecedented two Peabodys in the same year (one the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Peabody for science and medical journalism).
He is married to producer/journalist Alison Craiglow Hockenberry with whom he has two sets of twins.
