All about Hattie Kauffman

Hattie Kauffman Brings Indian Country to the CBS Newsroom

By Jack McNeelKauffman, the first and only American Indian to report for a national network, hails from the Nez Perce Reservation in Lapwai, Idaho. She spent the first three years of her life on the reservation, then Kauffman and her mother relocated to Seattle, Washington. She still considers Nez Perce her home, where she often returned to “visit grandparents and uncles and aunts,” she told Indian Country Today Media Network.

“I got Native American culture when I would go home in terms of the native foods like huckleberries, salmon, deer meat, that sort of thing—even learning how to gather that kind of food,” Kauffman told ICTMN. “That was a traditional thing my grandfather did. We all jumped in the pickup truck to go to the huckleberry grounds up high where the grizzlies haunt and we’d pick.”

Kauffman has been with CBS since 1989 and was on “Good Morning America” on ABC News from May 1987 to March 1990. Her television career dates back to 1981, when she began as a reporter for KING-TV in Seattle and transitioned to an anchor in 1983. During her tenure in Seattle, Kauffman earned four Emmy Awards for her work, according to her profile on CBSNews.com.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Native Documentaries and News.