Hal Bruno

As the Political Director of ABC News, Hal Bruno was responsible for campaign and election coverage on the ABC television and radio networks for 19 years. He appeared on air as a political analyst and the host of “Hal Bruno’s Washington ”, a weekly interview program broadcast on the ABC Radio network until his retirement in 1999. He currently is the political analyst for “Politics.com” Web site.

Mr. Bruno joined ABC News in 1978, after 18 years with Newsweek magazine, where he had been a reporter, foreign correspondent, bureau chief, News Editor and Chief Political Correspondent. He has covered every presidential election since 1960 and served as moderator of the vice-presidential debate in the 1992 campaign.

A native of Chicago, he began his journalism career while a student at the University of Illinois, where he was a sports writer for the Daily Illini and worked weekends on the Champaign News Gazette. After graduation in 1950, he started as a reporter for Advertising Age magazine and then became sports editor of the DeKalb (IL) Daily Chronicle.

Mr. Bruno served as an Army Intelligence officer during the Korean War and returned to journalism as a police reporter for the Chicago City News Bureau. He joined the Chicago American in 1954, and for the next six years covered a wide range of stories, from investigations of crime and social problems in Chicago to wars and revolutions in South Asia , the Middle East and the Caribbean .

In 1956, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to India , where he conducted a study of the Indian press and filed stories for the International News Service. Some of his unique foreign assignments included both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Cuban revolution and the Chinese-Indian War in the Himalayan mountains. He has been honored with the Illini Achievement Award by the University of Illinois , the Lowell Thomas Award for Public Speaking by the International Platform Association and, in 1999, was named Press Veteran of the Year by the Chicago Press Veterans Association.

Mr. Bruno also is a nationally recognized authority on fire safety, writes a monthly column for Firehouse magazine, and served for almost 40 years as an active volunteer firefighter. He is a director of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and the Chevy Chase ( Maryland ) Fire Department. His work in fire safety has won numerous awards. In 1995, he was named Fire Service Person of the Year by the Congressional Fire Services Institute, and in 1999 received the President’s Award from the International Association of Fire Chiefs

Hal and his wife, Margaret, have two sons and two granddaughters. He is an avid fisherman, an excellent skier, a loyal Chicago Cubs fan and a terrible tennis player. For many years he was captain of the ABC softball team and plays the guitar in a bluegrass band made up of Washington newsmen, known as the “Informed Sources.”