RON HENDREN
HOST AND CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
According to Ron Hendren, host of BREAKTHROUGH, "the medical
revolution is moving with such speed and so many dazzling successes that it is very
difficult for even physicians and scientists to keep up, much less the average
layperson." For this reason, he believes BREAKTHROUGH has become "for the
viewing public, what the New England Journal of Medicine is for physicians."
A nationally acclaimed journalist with decades of award-winning news
coverage and commentary to his credit, Hendren has been honored with an Emmy Award, two
Golden Mike Awards and the prestigious Los Angeles Press Club Award for excellence in
journalism.
The original co-host of the long-running national television series,
Entertainment Tonight, Hendren also served as West Coast editor and Television Critic for
NBC's Today. During his career, he hosted ABC Radio's TV Tonight and KRON-TV News'
Hendren-At-Large in San Francisco; was commentator and news anchor for San Francisco's
KQED-TV; and served as a news commentator on Los Angeles' KNBC-TV and Washington, DC's
WRC-TV, both of which are NBC owned and operated stations. Hendren also authored "In
Washington," a column for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, which afforded him the
distinction of being the nation's youngest nationally syndicated columnist.
Hendren's work has been noted in Time and Newsweek magazines, as well as
The New York Times. TV Guide considered his Today show reports "... perhaps NBC's
finest hour," an opinion echoed by the L.A. Herald Examiner which called him "an
astute and outstanding observer." Hendren's efforts on the local level were noted by
Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times who wrote, "Ron Hendren is perhaps the best
television commentator in town."
A Whittaker Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
with Honors in Journalism and Political Science, Ron Hendren served in the political
sphere as Senior Legislative Assistant, U.S. Senator Stephen M. Young; Legislative
Assistant to Senator B. Everett Jordan (D-NC); Chairman, President's Youth Advisory
Council on Selective Service under President Richard M. Nixon; Administrative Assistant
for the Honorable R. Sargent Shriver; and Office of Economic Opportunity Congressional
Liaison, Executive Office of the President under President Lyndon B. Johnson.
He was also a visiting lecturer in Journalism at the University of
Maryland at College Park.
