Miles O'Brien (journalist)

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Miles O'Brien (b. June 9, 1959) is a news anchor and reporter for CNN. He formerly co-hosted Live From, a weekday afternoon show on CNN's North American feed, alongside Kyra Phillips. He became a co-host of American Morning, alongside Soledad O'Brien (no relation) on June 20, 2005.

A licensed aircraft pilot, O'Brien is widely recognized as CNN's in-house expert on aviation, space exploration and space technology. He took over from John Holliman who was killed in a car accident in 1998. Prior to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, NASA was reportedly close to announcing that O'Brien would be, or would be a candidate to be, the first American journalist in space. After the destruction of the Columbia and a suspension of the Space Shuttle program, the idea was shelved [1].

O'Brien is originally from the Detroit area and attended the prestigious University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe, later graduating from Georgetown University. He began his career in journalism at WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. as an assignment editor in 1982. He would later go on to KQTV St. Joseph, Missouri, then to WNYT-TV in Albany, New York. He later went to WTSP-TV in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he won his first Emmy Award for coverage of the 1984 methyl isocyanate gas leak disaster in Bhopal. In 1987, he went to report at WCVB-TV in Boston.

O'Brien was awarded the Space Communicator Award from the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement for outstanding media coverage of space reporting.