William “Bill” Lord is a Seattle native who was drafted into the Army at 19, and was ultimately sent to fight in the Vietnam War. In a way, he started his career in communications there, since he was charged with carrying the infantry company’s radio through many battles, including the Tet Offensive of 1968. Upon his return from the war, he attended Highline Community College on his way to being accepted at the University of Washington.
After graduation, he worked as a reporter in Oregon and Utah before becoming one of the youngest correspondents hired by NBC. He spent two years in Beirut covering the civil war for NBC. He was the news director at KIRO-TV twice, and eventually landed in Washington D.C., where he was the news director at WJLA-TV (ABC) for ten years, and then general manager for four more years.
Bill Lord has interviewed dozens of newsmakers during his years as a reporter—including Yassar Arafat, Golda Meir, King Hussein of Jordan, and Anwar Sadat. He has overseen coverage and won awards for many stories of national interest, including the O.J. Simpson trial, the Seattle earthquake, the WTO riots, Hurricane Isabel, and the Washington D.C. Navy Yard shooting. He received television’s highest award, a Peabody, for leading an investigative reporting team exposing public corruption. He has won two DuPont Columbia awards, multiple Edward R. Murrow awards, AP journalism awards, the National Headliner Award for the country’s best newscast, the Robert F. Kennedy Award for reporting on the disadvantaged, a national Emmy for public service, and dozens of local news Emmys between 1980 and 2016.
He has served on various boards including the March of Dimes, the Radio and Television News Directors Association, and Nashville’s Oasis Center teen program. He has organized station partnerships with the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, the USO, and the Washington D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival. He considers one of his proudest accomplishments to be serving as the national board chairman of Prime Movers, an organization dedicated to teaching journalism to young students in minority neighborhoods in the D.C. area. In addition, Bill has participated in many professional panels on journalism and the First Amendment at colleges and in community forums. Following his retirement in 2017, he joined the Headliner Team at the National Press Club booking high profile speakers. He also published a memoir titled “50 Years After Vietnam” about his experiences in 1967-68.