Connie Lawn papers
Collection
0548-MMC
This collection documents the professional activities and personal life of journalist Connie Lawn, and dates from 1966 to 1987. Connie Lawn was an American news reporter who covered American politics and world affairs starting in the mid-1960s. Connie Lawn's early work in radio and television led her to create, in 1971, the Video News Bureau, which produced customized news reports to stations throughout the world. The collections provides insight into the work of a woman who was, at the time of her death in 2018, the longest-serving White House correspondent in history.
This collection is open to the public and must be used in the Special Collections Reading Room. Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection.
Photocopies or digital surrogates may be provided in accordance with Special Collections and University Archives duplication policy.
Copyright resides with the creators of the documents or their heirs unless otherwise specified. It is the researcher’s responsibility to secure permission to publish materials from the appropriate copyright holder.
Archival materials may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal and/or state right to privacy laws or other regulations. While we make a good faith effort to identify and remove such materials, some may be missed during our processing. If a researcher finds sensitive personal information in a collection, please bring it to the attention of the Special Collections reading room staff.
8.75 Linear Feet (12 boxes)
The Connie Lawn papers consist of correspondence, resumes, audiotapes, videotapes, film, business documents, artifacts, clippings, and photos. They span the years 1966 through 1987 with the bulk of the collection concentrated in the years 1968 through 1972.
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.
The resources in the Connie Lawn papers are arranged in eight series by subject and format.
This collection contains audiovisual materials. Items that cannot be used in the Special Collections reading room or are too fragile for researchers require that a digital copy be made prior to use. If you would like to access these materials, please contact us prior to your visit.
This collection was donated to the Library of American Broadcasting at the University of Maryland Libraries by Connie Lawn in several installments, beginning in May 2004.
This collection has been minimally processed. Aside from some rough groupings of similar material, the collection came to the Libraries in no particular order. The processing archivist loosely arranged files into separate series, however, there is overlap among the series. Materials were rehoused into acid-free folders, divided into series, and described at the folder level. In the spring of 2020, the arrangement of the collection was reviewed and revised. The materials were intellectually rearranged into eight thematic series.
Audio materials were arranged into a separate series distinct from other materials.
Part of the Special Collections and University Archives