Career

Bittermann graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Southern Illinois University

Southern Illinois University

Southern Illinois University is a state university system based in Carbondale, Illinois, in the Southern Illinois region of the state, with multiple campuses...

 in 1970 and began in print journalism from 1969 to 1970 as a reporter for the Waukegan News-Sun in Waukegan, Illinois

Waukegan, Illinois

Waukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...

. His television career began at WTMJ-TV

WTMJ-TV

WTMJ-TV, digital channel 28 ; branded as "Today's TMJ4", is the NBC-affiliated television station located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the flagship station of the Journal Broadcast Group. Its signal covers most of southeastern Wisconsin and parts of northeastern Illinois, including Racine, Kenosha,...

 in Milwaukee from 1970 to 1972. From 1972 to 1973 he worked at WQED-TV in Pittsburgh and 1973 to 1975 he was as a reporter for WKYC-TV

WKYC-TV

WKYC, virtual channel 3 , is an NBC-affiliated television station located in Cleveland, Ohio, owned by the Gannett Company. Its studio is located on the shores of Lake Erie, while its transmitter is located in Parma, Ohio....

 in Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

. Bittermann was with CBC News

CBC News

CBC News is the department within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on CBC television, radio and online services...

 as a Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

-based correspondent and producer for the broadcaster's newsmagazine from 1975 to 1978.

From 1978-1990, he was a European correspondent for NBC News. Based in Rome from 1978–1979, he covered two Papal transitions and the travels of Pope John Paul II. From 1980-1990, he was based in Paris. While there, he reported on many of the decade's major international stories in Eastern Europe, Northern and Western Africa, the Middle East, the Philippines, Japan and the Soviet Union. He received a national news Emmy Award for his coverage of the 1988 Sudan famine.

He became Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 correspondent for ABC News

ABC News

ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...

 from 1990 to 1996. He has reported wars and revolutions in the Mideast, Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 and eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

 as well as such stories as the Soccer World Cup

FIFA World Cup

The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...

, the travels of Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II

Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...

, and Princess Diana's death in 1997.

Since 1998, Bittermann has been an assistant adjunct professor of communications at The American University of Paris

American University of Paris

The American University of Paris is a private, independent, and accredited liberal arts and sciences university in Paris, France. Founded in 1962, the university is one of the oldest American institutions of higher education in Europe...

. His wife, Emmy-winning television producer Patricia Thompson

Patricia Thompson

Patricia Thompson was a Paris-based American television producer and documentary filmmaker.-Biography:Thompson began her career at the NBC Chicago station WMAQ-TV in the 1970s...

, died in 2010.

Awards

He was awarded the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Legion of Honor on January 1, 2009.

• CableACE Award for CNN's coverage of the civil war in Zaire
• Southern Illinois University's Journalism Alumnus of the Year 1989
• SIU Alumni Achievement Award 2000.