Peter Van Sant (‘75 Communication) is a correspondent for the CBS News program 48 Hours Mystery.
Peter’s television journalism career began in 1975 at KMVT-TV in Twin Falls, Idaho. He went on to work at stations in Dallas, Phoenix, Omaha, and Cedar Rapids. He joined CBS News in 1984 and was based in Atlanta for six years, covering the South and the U.S. space program as a correspondent for CBS Evening News. His investigative report on the high number of medical helicopter crashes earned his first Emmy Award in 1986.
While assigned to the CBS London bureau, he reported extensively on the collapse of the Soviet Union. He also covered the first Persian Gulf War, the reunification of Germany, famine in Africa, and other important stories that took him across Europe and the Middle East.
Peter has reported for CBS News magazines Street Stories and America Tonight. At CBS Evening News, he received an Emmy for coverage of the social and economic collapse of Albania. He has contributed to prime time television specials for Smithsonian Fantastic Journey and was a correspondent for Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel. Peter was the first television journalist to report on the devastating famine in North Korea, winning his third Emmy.
A correspondent for 48 Hours since 1998, Peter’s report on terrorists seizing and destroying a school in Beslan, Russia, won him both his fourth Emmy and the Radio, Television, Digital News Association’s (RTDNA) Edward R. Murrow Award. The Beslan report also won Russia’s prestigious Golden Word Award. A producer/writer for the Emmy-nominated 2006 documentary Three Days in September, Peter is also co-author of the book Perfectly Executed, part of the 48 Hours Mystery true crime book series.
Peter’s work to date has earned him four Emmy awards, four RTDNA Murrow Awards, two Overseas Press Club awards, the American Women in Radio and Television Award, the Sigma Delta Chi Award, and numerous other local news awards.