May 2024

Martha Teichner is a correspondent for CBS NEWS SUNDAY MORNING. Since 1993, she has reported on a wide range of issues, including politics, the arts, culture, science and social issues impacting our world.

Teichner joined CBS News in 1977. Her groundbreaking career has spanned the gamut of the human experience. She has witnessed and reported on some of the most significant national and international stories.

At CBS NEWS SUNDAY MORNING, Teichner has reported on everything from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the death of Princess Diana, the life of Nelson Mandela, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the protests following the murder of George Floyd, a workshop designed to bring together those with opposing political views to find common ground, the history of crisis in Haiti and an exhibit of items left behind in the NOVA Music Festival attack that launched the Israel-Hamas war.

She’s also interviewed notables such as author Margaret Atwood, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, architect Jeanne Gang, chef Erin French of The Lost Kitchen and actor Nathan Lane.

Earlier in her career, Teichner was among the first women working for a network television news division to cover international wars, including the Lebanon War, the first Intifada in 1988 in Israel and the West Bank, the war in El Salvador and the conflicts associated with the collapse of Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia). Teichner covered the Maze Prison hunger strikes in Northern Ireland, during which Bobby Sands and nine other prisoners died. She reported on the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the Romanian Revolution. Teichner also spent several weeks in the Bolivian jungle reporting on undercover operations with the Drug Enforcement Agency.

During the Persian Gulf War, she was one of a small group of journalists allowed by the military to accompany U.S. troops. She spent nearly six weeks with the 1st Armored Division in the Saudi desert but also covered the conflict from Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan and Israel.

Her reporting has earned multiple national awards, including 15 Emmy Awards, six James Beard Foundation Awards and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.

Teichner was part of the team coverage of the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting, which earned CBS News a 2014 duPont-Columbia Award. In 2020, Teichner was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame by Michigan Women Forward. And in 2018, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Newswomen’s Club of New York.

Now based in New York, Teichner spent over a dozen years as a foreign correspondent. She was twice assigned to the CBS News London bureau (1980-1984, 1989-1994). Between her two London assignments, Teichner was based in Johannesburg (1987-1989) during the dangerous final years of the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. She returned to report on Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, and in 1994, covered his election as the first president of a post-apartheid South Africa. Also, Teichner spent three years in the Dallas bureau (1984-1987). She started at CBS News as a correspondent in the Atlanta bureau (1977-1980).

Teichner began her journalism career at WJEF Radio and WZZM-TV in Grand Rapids, Mich. She then became a general assignment reporter for WTVJ-TV Miami and WMAQ-TV Chicago.

Born in Traverse City, Mich., Teichner is a graduate of Wellesley College. Her New York Times bestselling memoir, When Harry Met Minnie, about two dogs and the power of friendship, was released in February 2021.