David Martin

David Martin is an American television news correspondent, journalist, and author who works for CBS news.

Bio

Taken from Martin's biography page on CBS News' website:

David Martin has been CBS News' national security correspondent, covering the Pentagon and the State Department, since 1993. He has reported virtually every major defense, intelligence, and international affairs story for the CBS Evening News, as well as for other broadcasts, including 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Wednesday, and 48 Hours.

Martin broke several significant stories before and during the Iraq War. He was the first to report, on the opening night of the war, that the U.S. was launching a strike on a palace bunker in southern Baghdad in an attempt to take out Saddam Hussein. Martin also broke the story of the military's "shock and awe" strategy for its initial strike on Baghdad. During a trip to Iraq in May 2003, he was the first journalist to visit and report on Dora Farms, where Saddam Hussein was said by the CIA to have been hiding on the opening night of the war.

Martin joined CBS News as its Pentagon correspondent in 1983. Duties later expanded to include the State Department and intelligence beats. Before that, he covered defense and intelligence matters for Newsweek magazine from its Washington bureau (1973-1977), covering the FBI and CIA. Martin was also a member of the Associated Press special assignment team (1977). He began his journalism career as a researcher for CBS News in New York in 1969. He then became a news writer with the AP broadcast wire (1971-72) and a fellow at the Washington Journalism Center (1973).

Martin and Abu Ghraib story

In February 2006, Martin proposed to do a story on the CBS Evening News about Torin Nelson, who was a civilian interrogator at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Nelson was not implicated in any of the abuses, but his name has been linked to the scandal, and he has been unable to hold a job as an interrogator ever since [1]. However, the producers of Evening News turned down Martin's proposal. Martin did discuss the unproduced story on his CBS blog. "I think part of the reason [the story was turned down]," he wrote "was not the news value, but the fact that nobody wants to put those awful pictures [from Abu Ghraib] on television again."

Books by David Martin

• Wilderness of Mirrors (Harper & Row, 1980), an account of the secret wars between the CIA and KGB
• Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of America’s War Against Terrorism (Harper & Row, 1988)

Awards

• Two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards in three years (2002 and 2004)
• Joan S. Barone Award (2004) for excellence in Washington-based national affairs and public policy reporting awarded by the Washington Radio & Television Correspondents' Association