Since graduating from UVA in 1974, Media Studies Professor of Practice, Wyatt Andrews, has had a lasting impact on the University and the world of reporting. Retiring this May, Andrews is universally admired by students, co-workers, and family alike, and has cultivated strong relationships throughout his successful career.
Before joining the UVA faculty in 2016, Andrews dedicated 41 years to a career in television news. 34 of these were spent at CBS News, where he served as National Correspondent but at various times, was the White House, Supreme Court, and State Department Correspondent. Reporting on historical, international, and local stories, Andrews served in posts from Richmond and Miami to Tokyo and Moscow. His outstanding journalism won him three Emmy Awards for his coverage of the 1984 assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, and the 2003 Washington, D.C. sniper case.
Bob Orr, a former correspondent for CBS News and Andrews’s colleague and friend of 15 years, recalls Andrews’s special talent for tackling difficult stories. “[Wyatt] would take on the toughest topics and dig into them, and in the end, not just report out a very detailed, fact-based story, but one that was very engaging and interesting. And that’s the real challenge.” Andrews’s dedication and relentless pursuit of information was inspiring to Orr, who added, “Whenever he would come on TV, I always made sure to stop and turn it on because I never failed to learn something.”
Speaking on Andrews’s as a professor, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Robertson Professor of Media Studies, shared, "He arrived in the classroom with decades of experience and knowledge. But what made him an outstanding teacher was his commitment to serving his students as they needed him, not by assuming he knew everything about them or about teaching. A great reporter is a great listener. Wyatt listened to his students to discover what they did not know and built his teaching practice to meet them. We should all learn to teach more like Wyatt."
Beyond his professional career, Andrews prioritized his relationships and time spent with family. His youngest son, Christian Andrews, credits his father for helping him develop his writing skills and instilling in him a dedicated work ethic. Christian, himself an alumnus of UVA, recalls being surprised and excited when his father was appointed Professor of Practice in Media Studies during his first year. He reflects, “I took his class the first semester it was offered. It was kind of funny because no one in the class knew he was my dad and he ended up giving me a B on the final paper.” Christian added, “At the end of the day, I think what my dad really wants his impact to be is inspiring dedicated UVA students to become journalists.”