Ben Wedeman

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Ben Wedeman is CNN senior correspondent in Jerusalem. Before Jerusalem he lived in Egypt where he was CNN's Bureau Chief. Prior to that, he was CNN's Amman Bureau chief. He was orgininally hired by CNN as a local Jordanian employee. The job title was fixer/producer/sound technician; one of his duties was to help reporting staff get through checkpoints, since he is fluent in multiple dialects of Arabic and deeply familiar with the culture(s).

The quality and integrity of his work has been widely recognized. For instance:

• With his team, he won the 1996 overseas press club Edward R. Murrow Award for Best TV interpretation or documentary on foreign affairs for the network’s coverage of Jordan’s evolving relationship with Israel after their historic peace deal, as well as for its coverage of Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

• He led the team, that won an Emmy award, for its 2000 coverage of the war in Sierra Leone. This coverage also earned him an Edward R. Murrow award.

• Ben's team won the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow award for its coverage of the 2006 Israeli siege of Lebanon, where they stayed on the ground, documenting the experience of the Lebanese people, through the entire siege.

Ben was born in Washington, DC. His father is a retired diplomat. Thus, Ben spent most of his formative years outside of the United States, after having moved with his family to South Korea in 1968. Subsequently, he lived with his family in Bangkok, Thailand; Phnom Penh, Cambodia - during the war - then attended boarding schools in Beirut, Lebanon (in 1974-75, just as the civil war broke out); Tangier, Morocco; and Windsor, Connecticut (USA). He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor’s degree in Oriental Languages and Linguistics and from London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies with a masters degree in Middle Eastern Studies.

References

^[1] Ben's Bio on the CNN Web site