Dateline first premiered on NBC on March 31, 1992, and it’s since become a cultural phenomenon. True-crime as a genre has exploded in popularity over the last 20 years, and Dateline remains a staple in the space.
But the show didn’t always center on true crime. As longtime correspondent Keith Morrison (who joined the show in 1995) explained on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Dateline really didn’t land on its true-crime focus until 2005. “Before that, we were kind of a mixed salad of a show. We had all kinds of stuff. I used to do stories about animals a lot. I loved doing whale stories. Bear stories and wolf [stories].”
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Of course, nowadays Dateline dives deep on the real-life murders and mysteries that personify the age-old phrase that truth is stranger than fiction. And scarier. Below, read more as Morrison and his fellow Dateline correspondent Andrea Canning look back on their years at Dateline, including the cases and stories that have stuck with them the most.
Dateline’s Keith Morrison and Andrea Canning on the show’s legacy: “Honoring the victims”
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“For me, it’s the younger victims,” Canning said on The Kelly Clarkson Show about which Dateline stories are hard to shake off after reporting them. “I’m a mom of six. I have five girls. I’ve got a couple of teenagers, so those ones really hit me. When it’s a young woman or teenager, those are hard.”
Meanwhile, Morrison reflected, “I carry a lot of [the cases] around. A lot of the people who have been victims and some people who were put in prison who oughtn’t to be there. Their stories just kind of accompany you wherever you go.”
Canning says the show is all about “honoring the victims.” “A lot of these cases are small towns,” she added. “Small town America, where no one has heard of the story, as you said. And so we are shining a light on it.”
Unsurprisingly, fans stop Morrison and Canning all the time to chat with them about Dateline. “Emails, phone calls, you name it. Yeah, they come in,” Morrison said.
“They want you to cover their case,” Canning said. “A lot of times there hasn’t been an arrest, so they want you to shake the trees.”
Seasons 18 through 34 of Dateline are available to stream on Peacock now.