CBS’ Nikki Battiste has been named CBS News correspondent.
Battiste will be based in New York and report for all CBS News broadcasts and platforms full-time, including for CBS This Morning, the CBS Evening News, CBS Sunday Morning, and CBSN, the network’s streaming news service.
Battiste had been serving as a staff correspondent for CBS Newspath, CBS’ 24-hour TV newsgathering service for CBS stations and broadcasters across the globe.
She’s best known for her investigations into the 2018 Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal, and later traveled to Rome in February 2019 to cover Pope Francis’ Vatican summit addressing the clergy abuse crisis.
Since joining CBS News, Battiste has also reported on the gun debate in America and was among the first to report on armed teachers in classrooms. She has reported and written several stories for the CBS Evening series Eye on America, including a teachers strike in Sacramento and the debate over arming college students on campus.
She also covered major breaking stories for CBS News, including Hurricane Michael in October 2018; the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting also in October 2018; the case of Colorado missing mother Kelsey Berreth; and the New Zealand mosque shooting.
Battiste joined CBS News in 2017 as a freelance correspondent for Newspath and was made a staff correspondent for Newspath in 2018.
Before joining CBS News, Battiste was an ABC News producer and reporter based in New York. At ABC News, Battiste reported extensively on the Amanda Knox case from Perugia, Italy. She was the first journalist in the world to sit down for an interview with Knox, after covering the Italian murder case for six years.