Lawn, Connie

Constance ("Connie") Lawn was born on Mary 14, 1944 in Long Branch, New Jersey. She attended Simmons College in Boston where she majored in government and did some graduate level work in English and government. Previously, she had attended Harvard University Summer School, studying creative writing, political science and philosophy. She also attended L’Institut D’Etudes Politques in Paris from June of 1964 to September of 1965.

Some of Connie Lawn’s early reporting jobs were with WAVA radio (in 1968), then Washington’s only all-news radio station; with WFAN-TV in Washington, DC, where she acted as producer, hostess, and publicity director for three half-hour television shows (Today's Look, Theater Week, and Ski World); and WETV-TV in New Bedford, MA doing news reporting, weather, and anchoring.

Beginning in 1968, Connie Lawn began doing freelance reporting and in 1971 founded Video News Bureau, which provided customized news reports to stations throughout the nation and the world. Since then, Lawn’s broadcasts have been heard in New Zealand, South Africa, and other countries.

In 2000, Connie Lawn published You Wake Me Each Morning (a phrase she has heard many times due to her early morning broadcasts), her memoir of life in the broadcast news trenches.

Lawn died at the age of 73 on April 2, 2018. At the time of her death, she was the longest-serving White House correspondent in history.