Peterson has worked at Washington, D.C. local news stations for most of his career. He worked for
CBS-affiliated
WUSA (Channel 9) as the news anchor for 35 years before switching to rival station
WJLA (Channel 7) after WUSA station management decided to cut his airtime. Peterson graduated from the
College of the Holy Cross and attended
Georgetown University without finishing a degree program. He became news director for AM radio station
WNEB in his hometown of
Worcester, Massachusetts before moving to CBS's
Boston affiliate,
WEEI. He also served as an officer in the
United States Marine Corps. Peterson first arrived in Washington in the fall of 1969, working as a reporter for both
WTOP radio and television, and within two years was named co-anchor with fellow staffer
Max Robinson of
The Big News, which later evolved into
Eyewitness News. He would remain the main anchor at Channel 9 for 33 years amid many changes on and off-camera. For most of that period he co-anchored with
Maureen Bunyan, with whom he was reunited on the 6 p.m. news on WJLA-TV in December 2004. Viewers also enjoyed Peterson's banter with sportscaster
Glenn Brenner, who was the city's most popular broadcast journalist from 1977 until his death in 1992. Brenner often ribbed Peterson for his lifelong support of the also-ran
Boston Red Sox major league baseball team. Brenner and Peterson became close friends, and their jokes at one another's expense became local legend. After
Martin Agronsky retired as moderator of
Agronsky & Co. in 1988, Peterson became producer and moderator of the show, which was retitled
Inside Washington. In early September 2013, Gordon Peterson announced that
Inside Washington would cease production in late December 2013 after a continuous run of 25 years. The last new episode of
Inside Washington aired in December 2013. It was announced on November 7, 2014, that Peterson would retire from WJLA-TV when his contract was to expire at the end of the year. His last newscast with the station aired on December 31. ==See also==