2015 Annenberg Lecture: Nancy Cordes, CBS News

"Chasing the Scooby Van and Tracking Trump to the Border: Covering the Wild Ride that is the 2016 Presidential Campaign"

About Nancy Cordes

Nancy Cordes is CBS News' Congressional correspondent. She is based in Washington, D.C. and contributes to all CBS news broadcasts and platforms. In this role, Cordes has reported on major stories such as the rise of the Tea Party and the battle over President Obama's health care law. Cordes also extensively covered the debt ceiling and fiscal cliff negotiations in Washington. She was a key part of CBS News' coverage of the 2008 and 2010 congressional elections and traveled with the Obama campaign during the network's coverage of Campaign 2012. 

Cordes joined CBS News in 2007 as Transportation and Consumer Safety correspondent, where she covered significant stories about the nation's transportation infrastructure and important safety issues. 

Previously, Cordes was an ABC News correspondent based in New York (2005-07), where she reported for all ABC News broadcasts and covered major news stories including Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq and the 2004 election. Before that, she was a Washington-based correspondent for NewsOne, the affiliate news service of ABC News (2003-04). Prior to ABC News, Cordes was a reporter for WJLA-TV Washington, D.C. (1999-2003). While at WJLA-TV, Cordes covered the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon, the 2000 presidential race, the Washington, D.C.-area sniper attacks, and peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia. She began her career as a reporter for KHNL-TV Honolulu (1995-97). 

Cordes was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Hawaii on the islands of Kauai and Oahu. She was graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995. Cordes received a master's degree in public policy from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

About the Annenberg Lecture

The annual Annenberg Lecture brings to Penn leaders in academia, politics, public policy, or the media. It combines two previous lectures, the Walter and Leonore Distinguished Lecture in Communication, which started in 1992, and the Leonore Annenberg Lecture in Public Service and Global Understanding, which began in 2006. Both series, and the subsequent single lecture, honor Ambassador and Mrs. Annenberg, without whose vision and support the Annenberg School and Annenberg Public Policy Center would not exist.