Stone Phillips

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. 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 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 secret society 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. 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.