Clarissa Ward Biography

Clarissa Ward is CNN's chief international correspondent based in London. For more than 15 years Ward has reported from front lines across the world from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen to Ukraine to Georgia -- during the Russian incursion in 2008 -- and Iran. Ward was named 2019 Reporter/Correspondent of the Year by the Gracies, she is the author of 'On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist,' a memoir that details her singular career as a conflict reporter and how she has documented the violent remaking of the world from close range.

She has won multiple awards for her reporting: Two George Foster Peabody Awards; two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards; seven Emmy Awards; two Edward R. Murrow Awards for distinguished journalism; honors from the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association; and the 2017 David Kaplan Award from the Overseas Press Club.

Ward joined CNN in 2015 from CBS News, where she served as a foreign correspondent for four years and contributed regularly to '60 Minutes.' While at CBS, Ward interviewed world leaders like U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012 and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in 2013, challenging them both on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's brutal crackdown inside Syria. Before joining CBS, Ward spent two years in Moscow and two years in Beijing for ABC News. She covered the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the 2008 global food crisis, where her coverage received an Emmy Award for Business and Financial Reporting.

Prior to ABC News, Ward was based in the Middle East for Fox News Channel, covering the execution of Saddam Hussein and other key stories in the regions in addition to interviewing notable figures like General David Petraeus and Lebanese President Emile Lahoud. Ward's career in journalism started in 2002 as an intern at CNN's Moscow bureau. She has since been based in Baghdad, Beijing, Beirut, Moscow, New York and London.

Ward speaks fluent French and Italian, conversational Russian, Arabic and Spanish, and basic Mandarin. She graduated with distinction from Yale University, and in 2013 received an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Middlebury College in Vermont.

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