(January 11, 1940- ) Born in Augusta, Georgia. Educated at Furman University (B.A., 1963) and University of Iowa. Worked for Newsweek's Atlanta and Los Angeles bureaus as correspondent (1966-67); as staff writer on Atlanta bureau of Saturday Evening Post (1968-69); as contributing editor, based in Atlanta, for Harper's (1969-71) and Life (1971-73); as chief correspondent for ABC News Close-up (1979-86); and as correspondent for Nightline (1986- ). Won 1982 Emmy award. Has contributed articles to Esquire, New York Review of Books, Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker and other periodicals. Author of Wallace (1968), Across a Darkling Plain: An American's Passage Through the Middle East (1971), Billy Graham: A Parable of American Righteousness (1979), Southerners: A Journalist's Odyssey (1980), Jesse: The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson (1996), and Martin Luther King Jr. (2002), a volume in the Penguin Lives series.