CNN Promotes Nima Elbagir to Chief International Investigative Correspondent

By A.J. Katz 

CNN has promoted senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir to the role of chief international investigative correspondent.

A London-based Sudanese journalist, Elbagir has broken countless stories for CNN from war and crisis zones, reporting on human rights abuses in places like Ethiopia’s Tigray region, Libya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Yemen. In 2017, her undercover reporting exposed migrants being sold at slave auctions in Libya and prompted responses from the government and the United Nations.

Elbagir has scooped up numerous awards in her career, including the Royal Television Society’s Television Journalist of the Year Award in 2020, a duPoint Award, a Polk Award in 2017, the International Center for Journalists 2018 Excellence in International Reporting Award, the 2018 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award, a 2019 Gracie Award, and the LA Press Club’s 2019 Daniel Pearl Award.

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Elbagir joined CNN in Feb. 2011 as a full-time reporter based at network’s Johannesburg bureau, before later moving to Nairobi, Kenya. Prior to joining CNN as a freelancer in 2010, Elbagir worked in various capacities for the UK’s Channel 4 for a number of years from 2005: she freelanced from Kabul, Afghanistan for Channel 4 News; reported for the Unreported World documentary strand; and both reported and presented for Channel 4 News and More4 News.

That’s the only staffing news coming from CNN International on Thursday. Will Ripley is being promoted to CNN senior international correspondent, Elbagir’s most-recent role.

Ripley has become well-known on TV news for his reporting across Asia Pacific region, including his coverage of North Korea under Kim Jong Un—covering the protests and changing socio-political landscape in Hong Kong—and most recently his reporting on the growing tensions between China and Taiwan.

Ripley will now be based in Taiwan.

 

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