George Washington University honored her for a special report in the late 1980s, in which Cavanaugh was the first non-network journalist from the United States allowed in the Soviet Union under their new "glasnost".
The report concerned how much of Oklahoma's wheat crop was ending up on the tables of Russian families.
In the early 1990s, Cavanaugh became the first television journalist allowed to photograph ancient Native American rituals that had been closed to tribal non-members, shown in the 12-part series "Strangers In Their Own Land".
She was accompanied by former POW Dan Glenn, a Navy pilot who spent six years there as a prisoner.
She made a cameo appearance as herself on NBC's series The Event in the episode titled "Your World to Take".