Stone Stockton Phillips (born December 2, 1954) is an American television reporter and correspondent. He is best known as the former co-anchor of '' Dateline NBC'', a news magazine TV series. He also has worked as a substitute anchor for '' NBC Nightly News'' and '' Today'' and as a substitute moderator on '' Meet the Press''. Prior to his tenure at NBC, he was an ABC News correspondent for '' 20/20'' and '' World News Tonight''.

Early life

Stone Phillips was born December 2, 1954, in Texas City, Texas, to parents Victor and Grace Phillips, a Monsanto chemical engineer and school teacher, respectively. Victor Phillips is a veteran of World War II. Phillips and his siblings—brother Victor III and sister Minta—were raised in the Claymont section of Ballwin, Missouri, in the Greater St. Louis area. As a boy Phillips was an acolyte at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Ellisville, Missouri, where his parents were founding members of the congregation. Phillips attended Parkway West High School in Ballwin, Missouri, where he was an honor student and starting quarterback on the football team. Phillips is of

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

ancestry. Phillips matriculated at Yale University where he continued to excel in academics and in athletics. In 1976, he was starting quarterback for the Yale Bulldogs squad that won the Ivy League football championship. Phillips was a member of Yale's Scroll and Key

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and earned the university's prestigious F. Gordon Brown Award for outstanding academic and athletic leadership. Phillips graduated with honors from Yale in 1977, earning a Bachelor of Philosophy.

Career

After graduating from Yale, Phillips moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he worked as a remedial reading and math teacher at the Fulton County Juvenile Detention Center. He was supplementing his pay by moonlighting as a waiter when he landed an entry-level news position at WXIA-TV, the local NBC affiliate. In 1980, after less than two years as a reporter, writer, and broadcast producer in Atlanta, Phillips was hired by ABC News as an assignment editor for its Washington, D.C., news bureau. In 1982, he began filing stories as an on-air correspondent for ABC, covering such major events as the war in Lebanon, the exodus of Vietnamese boat people in the mid-1980s, and Rajiv Gandhi's election campaign following the assassination of his mother,

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (; Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 ...

. In 1986, Phillips was promoted to a regular role on the ABC news magazine '' 20/20''. Beginning that year, he also served as a substitute host on ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. Th ...

'' and a sports anchor for ABC’s '' World News Sunday''. Phillips ended his twelve-year relationship with ABC in 1992, joining NBC News to serve as co-anchor with Jane Pauley on '' Dateline NBC''. While at NBC News, Phillips also hosted ''Weekend Magazine with Stone Phillips''. He conducted a long list of notable interviews during his time with NBC. Among them was the first network interview with Lynndie England, the U.S. Army soldier, about her role in the

Abu Ghraib prison scandal During the early stages of the Iraq War, members of the United States Army and the CIA committed a series of human rights violations and war crimes against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, including physical and sexual abuse, tortu ...

. Others included notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and Bernhard Goetz (a man who shot four black teenagers in the

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). The latter earned Phillips an

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

for Outstanding Interview. Phillips co-anchored ''Dateline NBC'' from its inception until July 2, 2007, when NBC did not renew his $7 million contract. On October 17, 2005, Phillips was the guest on the premiere episode of ''The Colbert Report''. Phillips' delivery was part of the inspiration for comedian Stephen Colbert's persona on '' The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.'' On December 18, 2014, Phillips would again appear on

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of ''The Colbert Report''. As of 2012, Phillips was contributing reports to the '' PBS NewsHour''. In 2013, he reported on golf course water usage for The Golf Channel. In May 2013, Phillips produced and hosted ''Moving with Grace'', a documentary airing on PBS stations that chronicled his efforts and those of his siblings to provide care for their aging parents. It also explored various issues faced by other baby boomers in similar circumstance.

Personal life

Phillips lives in New York with his wife Debra Del Toro-Phillips who is Puerto Rican and moved to New York City as a child. After a successful career in the fashion industry she returned to college and earned a master's degree in

social work Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...

References

External links

Biography at nbcnews.com
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Stone 1954 births 20th-century American Episcopalians American football quarterbacks American people of Scottish descent American television news anchors American television reporters and correspondents Living people American male journalists NBC News people ABC News people People from Texas City, Texas People from Ballwin, Missouri Players of American football from Missouri Players of American football from Texas Yale Bulldogs football players Yale University alumni Journalists from Texas