Brennan takes Face the Nation reins from fellow alum

When Margaret Brennan (Col ’02) took over as the moderator for CBS’ Face The Nation in February, she was excited by the challenge.

“Trying to keep the tradition and the integrity of the program is something I take very seriously,” Brennan said. “I was so excited to have the opportunity, but I also feel very humbled and very well aware that this is a tradition that is long-standing and one I need to uphold.”

Brennan took the reins from another alumnus, John Dickerson (Col ’91), who left to host CBS This Morning. Other UVA alumni working on the show include longtime executive producer Mary Hager (Col ’87) and frequent panelist Jamelle Bouie (Col ’09).

Brennan joined CBS in 2012 after working for Bloomberg Television and CNBC for 10 years as an anchor and correspondent in financial journalism. She’s also the senior foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News.

“She’s very good at TV,” Dickerson says of Brennan. “It’s one thing to ask questions; it’s another to do so in a small room with someone talking in your earpiece with the clock ticking and the lights on.”

Brennan takes over the Sunday morning roundtable at a critical time, Hager says.

“In this age of fake news and Twitter, you don’t really know what to make of things, so Sunday shows are more important now than ever,” Hager says. “It’s truly the only opportunity where we have an hour at the end/beginning of the week to sit down and say, ‘OK, here’s what we think are the most important things happening this week, and here’s why you need to care about them.’”