Frank Sesno
Frank Sesno is an internationally recognized journalist with over 30 years of experience reporting from around the world. Well known as a former anchor, White House correspondent and interview host with CNN, he is also a nationally renowned moderator, engaging some of the world's leading personalities. As the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University, he has taught a range of courses, including the Art of the Interview, Journalistic Ethics, Multi-Media Reporting to Inform and Engage and Art and Genre of Documentary. At GW, he established The Center for Innovative Media. The Center’s goal is to be a hub for highly innovative production, teaching and symposia in emerging media and public policy. The Center’s major initiative is Planet Forward, a user-driven web site that focuses on energy, climate, food production and global sustainability issues. Sesno presents stories from Planet Forward in a weekly segment on Bloomberg Television.
Sesno has produced a number of documentaries that have engaged some of the biggest issues and personalities of our era. As a former CNN special correspondent, Sesno's work included an hour-long special, Iran: Fact or Fiction, which highlighted the implications of Iran's nuclear program. He traveled around the world to produce the documentary, We Were Warned–Tomorrow's Oil Crisis. In the midst of the War in Iraq Rumsfeld: Man of War looked at one of the most polarizing Secretaries of Defense in American history. Other major documentaries include Ronald Reagan: A Legacy Remembered, for The History Channel and the four-part, eight-hour PBS series, Avoiding Armageddon, which examined terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and failed states. Sesno created and hosted the public television series, The Future of News, which examined the transformation in journalism and media.
Sesno has interviewed five American Presidents—Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush—and business and government leaders from around the world. He has spoken with some of the most influential personalities of our time: Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, Carlos Slim, Condoleezza Rice, Benjamin Netanyahu, Mikhail Gorbachev, Hosni Mubarak, Margaret Thatcher, Yasser Arafat, Jack Welch, Tom Ridge, Ted Turner and Walter Cronkite to name just a few. He continues his insightful interviews through the Conversation Series at The George Washington University, which he inaugurated in 2007.
During his two-decade tenure at CNN, Sesno covered a wide range of stories—from Operation Desert Storm to the disputed U.S presidential election of 2000 and the historic series of U.S.-Soviet summits during the 1980's.
Sesno has won many prestigious journalistic awards including a national and regional Emmy; several CableAce awards, Clarion Award, and Cine Golden Eagle awards; a Lincoln Unity award and an Overseas Press Club Award.
Sesno joined CNN in 1984 and for seven years was White House correspondent after which he moved to the anchor chair. From 1996 through 2001, he served as the Washington, D.C., bureau chief and senior vice president. In this capacity, he oversaw the bureau's editorial direction and supervised the network's largest newsgathering operation—including White House, Congressional and Pentagon coverage, as well as the network's political reporting. For seven years, he hosted Late Edition with Frank Sesno, CNN's flagship weekend interview program.
Before joining CNN, Sesno served as overseas correspondent based in London and then White House correspondent for the Associated Press Radio Network.
Prior to his current academic appointment at George Washington University, Sesno was university professor of public policy and communication at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
Sesno is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He serves as Advisory Board Chair of the POSSE Foundation's D.C. Chapter. He serves on the media advisory board of Americares. He is a former trustee of Middlebury College, the Potomac School in McLean, Virginia and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Journalism Award committee.
Sesno holds an honors degree in American History and graduated cum laude from Middlebury College. He was conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 1995 by the Monterrey Institute of International Studies in California, and received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from his alma mater, Middlebury College in 2009. He is married with 3 children and currently resides in Great Falls, Virginia.
