In 1984, Ford was hired by
WCBS-TV as its legal commentator and joined
Courtroom Television Network upon its launch on July 1, 1991. He moved to
NBC News in 1994 as the chief legal correspondent and succeeded
Mike Schneider as the co-anchor with
Giselle Fernandez of the network's morning show
Weekend Today in May 1995. He continued to host the show with interim co-anchor
Ann Curry in 1996,
Jodi Applegate from 1996 to April 1999, and with
Soledad O'Brien from April to July 1999. That year he was named "Sexiest News Anchor" by
People magazine. In September 1999, Ford joined
ABC News and became a correspondent for
20/20 and
Good Morning America. On December 31, 1999, he was in
Times Square as part of
ABC 2000 Today, the network's 23-hour worldwide coverage of the
Millennium, hosted by
Peter Jennings. During ABC's coverage of the millennium, both he and
Dick Clark counted down the final minutes until 2000 arrived in Times Square. Ford was the moderator of
ESPN's
The Sports Reporters from 2002 to 2003 and co-hosted the short-lived syndicated talk show
Living It Up! With Ali & Jack, which premiered on September 15, 2003. Produced at the
CBS Broadcast Center in New York, the program, with "Ali", (actress
Alexandra "Ali" Wentworth), started with high ratings, but quickly lost ground and terminated production after seven months, although repeats continued for another four months, to August 2004. In June 2004, Ford returned to Court TV (now
truTV) and on January 17, 2006, began co-hosting, with
Ashleigh Banfield the two-hour daily afternoon program
Banfield & Ford: Courtside. Since 2009 he has been a CBS News Legal Analyst. He has been a Visiting Lecturer at Yale University since 2007, teaching an undergraduate seminar titled "Trials of the Twentieth Century," a course which he also taught at
New York University in 2019. He has also stayed involved in the game of football. Since 2000, he has been on the board of the
National Football Foundation and is also a
Vice Chairman. Since 2018, he has served as a college football analyst for
ESPN, calling Ivy League football games. He is the author of "The Osiris Alliance" (2009), a suspense novel about nuclear smuggling. He has received two
Emmy Awards, a
Peabody Award, an
American Radio and Television Award, a
National Headliner Award, and the
March of Dimes FDR Award. Ford had been a resident of
Interlaken, New Jersey and moved to
Spring Lake, where he lives with his wife and two children. He was a contestant on the original version of
Jeopardy! with
Art Fleming, winning three games. ==References==