James T. Wooten

Jim Wooten, age 88, of Washington, D.C. and West Chester, Pennsylvania, passed away peacefully on June 4th, 2026. 

Jim was born in Detroit, Michigan, on July 13th, 1937, to the late J.R. Wooten, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, and Clara (nee Richmond), a homemaker. 

Jim began his long and storied career at the Huntsville Times, in Alabama. From there, he became the Southern bureau chief of the New York Times in Atlanta, and later, at the Times, the White House correspondent. He wrote a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer and for Esquire Magazine. In 1979, he began his work for ABC News as a senior correspondent contributing to World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Nightline, This Week with David Brinkley, Good Morning America, and other ABC News broadcasts. 

Throughout his career, Jim covered the Civil Rights movement extensively, as well as politics. He covered seven presidential campaigns and reported from 14 political conventions. He was a war correspondent, as well, reporting from 40 countries across five continents. His stories often focused on the people deeply impacted by the conflicts he covered; he was always particularly moved by the children in war-torn communities. He reported from Bosnia, during the war between the Muslims and the Serbs, the civil wars in El Salvador and Beirut, the Sandanistan revolution, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, and racial unrest in South Africa. He was embedded with troops in Iraq during the Gulf War. 

Jim was an incredible writer, and the author of Soldier, Dasher: The Roots and the Rising of Jimmy Carter, and We Are All Same, A Story of a Boy's Courage and a Mother’s Love. He was a contributing author to Choose Me and Playing Around. 

He won many awards, including the Ernie Pyle Memorial Medal for his combat reporting on the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. He also won the Blue Pencil Award for Journalistic Excellence from Columbia University, an Overseas Press Club Award for his reports from Rwanda and Zaire, and a Peabody Award for coverage of the September 11th terrorist attacks. His reporting from Rwanda and Zaire for World News Tonight won the Overseas Press Club Award, and the Joe Alex Morris Award from Harvard University for distinguished foreign reporting. In 2005, the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center’s Book Award was given to him for his book, We Are All the Same. For his broadcast work, he won two Emmy Awards, for his team coverage of Princess Diana’s death, and for his work from Kosovo. 

Jim is survived by his wife, Patience O’Connor, his five daughters, Karen (Francis), Kristin (John), Katie (John), Elizabeth (Brian), and Lacie (Patrick); 10 grandchildren, Kristin, Francis, Madeline and Cecie Iacobucci, Morgan and August Walker, Nora and Alice Bielski, Patience Messore and Jack Holway; four great-grandchildren, Tommy Heckert, Mackenna and Joseph Farrant, and Paisley Rowe; and sisters Judy Parker and Sandi Goad. 

The funeral will be private for family and close friends. An additional celebration of Jim’s life and legacy is being planned for September in Washington, DC. 

In lieu of flowers, contributions in Jim’s memory may be made to The Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS and/or to the Thorncroft Equestrian Center’s Program for Veterans (https://thorncroft.org/veterans-program/ers), 190 Line Road, Malvern, PA 19355.