One of the first female network news correspondents, Pauline Frederick became best known for more than two decades of reporting from the United Nations for National Broadcasting Company (NBC) radio and television. For her first dozen years on network television-until 1960-she remained the only female reporter of lasting duration in the medium.

Frederick grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and got her first journalistic experience covering social news for the local paper. She left to earn her bachelor's degree in political science (1929) and a master's degree in international law (1931), both from American University in Washington, D.C. She originally intended to be an attorney but grew more interested in journalism while in school. She worked as a freelance reporter for, among other media, the Washington Star on women's issues, and some of her interviews were syndicated by the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA).

Her first broadcasting work was for NBC Blue, assisting commentator H.R. Baukage by conducting interviews with various newsmakers beginning in 19 38 with the wife of the Czech ambassador as Germany occupied that country. She continued at NBC into the 1940s, undertaking scriptwriting and other assignments, few of them on air in an era when female broadcast journalists were almost unheard of. Unable to break that gender barrier, she left the network in 1945 to work full-time for NANA while freelancing occasional "women's news" and other reports for what had become American Broadcasting Company (ABC) radio. This period of intensive international experience included travel to 19 countries in 1945-46; she sent reports from several countries in the Far East, from the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals in Germany, and from Poland.

Frederick returned to broadcasting when, despite being turned down by both the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and NBC (who still felt women's voices were not authoritative enough for news), she obtained a part-time position with fledgling ABC News in 1946, initially focusing (again) on "women's news." Her impressive output-including an exclusive interview with General Eisenhower and later coverage of a foreign ministers' conference-raised her status to full-time employment in 1948. That year she helped anchor ABC's television coverage of the national political conventions, and from August 1948 to March 1949 she hosted the Saturday evening 15-minute Pauline Frederick's Guest Books of television news interviews. She was heard on several radio network newscasts, her radio focus becoming international affairs, including the then-new United Nations, on which she quickly became an authority.

In 1954 Frederick returned to NBC and continued covering the United Nations for 21 years until her mandatory retirement (because of her age-she was65), about which she learned from a story in the New York Times in 1974. In this two-decade period she became the voice of the United Nations for many Americans. She was also heard covering political conventions, tensions and wars in the Middle East, the Cuban Missile Crisis and other parts of the Cold War, and the war in Vietnam. At the same time, she continued on NBC radio with Pauline Frederick Reporting, a 15-minute daily program.

After retiring from NBC radio and television news, Frederick commented on United Nations affairs for National Public Radio. She also became the first female journalist to moderate a presidential candidates' debate when she presided over one of the 1976 televised forums pitting President Gerald Ford against Governor Jimmy Carter. She retired in 1980.

Frederick received 23 honorary doctorates and was the first woman to win both the Alfred I. DuPont award (for commentary, in 1954 and 1956) and the George Foster Peabody award (1954). She was also the first woman to win the Paul White Award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association (1980). She was a model for many aspiring female journalists and was one of the first to succeed over a long career.