Veteran CBS News White House correspondent, Bill Plante, dies at 84

Bill Plante was a long-term White House correspondent for CBS news. Plante was also the anchor of CBS Sunday Night News from 1988 to 1995.

Bill Plante passes away: veteran White House Correspondent for CBS News Was 84

Bill Plante, a correspondent for CBS News who covered the White House from Ronald Reagan through Barack Obama, has passed away.

On Wednesday, the network reported that Plante, who was 84, had experienced respiratory failure.

After 52 years in the news division, Plante retired in 2016. During his time there, he covered the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, all of the presidential elections from 1968 to 2016, as well as other events like the Vietnam War. Additionally, Plante was the host of CBS Sunday Night News.

In 1964, Plante began working for the network as a reporter and assignment editor. He began working as a correspondent in Chicago two years later. He interviewed Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 as he marched from Selma to Montgomery, and he reported the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers that would later be depicted in the film Mississippi Burning.

Plante completed four reporting trips in Vietnam: in 1964, 1967, 1971–1972, and 1975 (the year Saigon fell). For his three-part investigation of the U.S.-Soviet wheat trade in 1972, he received an Emmy nomination.

Plante began working for CBS News in 1976 and was given a White House assignment when Reagan entered office.

Bill Plante Age, Family, and Early Life 

Bill Plante was 84 years old. Plante was born on January 14, 1938, in Chicago. His mother, Jane (Madden), was a school administrator, while his father, Regis, worked as a field engineer for a heating company. Plante graduated in 1955 from Loyola Academy in his hometown.

Around this time, he began his career in broadcasting as an employee of a classical music radio station in Evanston, Illinois.

Bill Plante Career, What was his Profession?

Plante began working for CBS News in June 1964 as a reporter and assignment editor following the completion of his studies at Columbia. Later that year, on his first of four reporting trips as a journalist, he was dispatched to South Vietnam to cover the Vietnam War. He covered the fall of Saigon and Phnom Penh during his final journey in 1975, which helped his CBS News team win the Overseas Press Club award for “Best Radio Spot News Reporting from Abroad.”

When state troopers attacked protestors on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on what has come to be known as “Bloody Sunday” in March 1965, Plante was in Selma, Alabama.

Later that month, he returned to cover the Selma to Montgomery marches and spoke with Martin Luther King Jr.

Plante’s last position at CBS News was Senior White House Correspondent, where she covered both the CBS Evening News and CBS This Morning. As a national journalist for CBS, he covered the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. He covered the Vietnam War as a news correspondent in South Vietnam for four tours, the first of which began in 1964 and ended in 1975 with the Fall of Saigon. From 1988 through 1995, he served as the CBS Sunday Night News host. In November 2016, he left the job.

Which school and college did he go to?

At Loyola University Chicago, Plante majored in business and humanities and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1959. He left Chicago-Kent College of Law after his acquaintance helped him land a position as WISN assistant TV news director. Before receiving a journalistic fellowship from CBS to study political science at Columbia University, he worked at the station for four years.

Bill Plante Net Worth, How much does he earn?

Bill Plante’s estimated net worth of $4 Million. His main source of income is his career as a journalist.

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Bill Plante Wife, What is his relationship?

Barbara Barnes Orteig was Plante’s first wife. In addition to the four kids from her first marriage that Plante adopted, they had two children together, one of whom is syndicated radio talk show presenter Chris Plante.

After they eventually got divorced, he wed Robin Smith in 1987. Before his passing, they were wed for 34 years. Patrick, one of his kids, passed away before him in 2014.

Is he available on any social media platforms?

We did a quick search for the social media reach of Bill but weren’t able to find him on any social media platforms.

Physical Appearance of Bill Plante’s Height, Weight

Interesting facts about Bill Plante’s which should be known