Jeffrey Kofman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section needs to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help improve this article with relevant internal links. (May 2008) |
Jeffrey Kofman is an ABC News correspondent covering Florida, the Caribbean and Latin America. From his base in Miami, he files reports for all ABC News’ broadcasts and platforms, including “World News with Charles Gibson,” “Good Morning America,” and “Nightline.”
Since joining ABC News in January 2001, Kofman has traveled extensively to report on developing stories and political events in Florida and the southeast. He has covered every major hurricane of the last seven years and was in New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2006.
Kofman has also traveled well beyond his region. He has done six tours in the Middle East since September 11, 2001: four in Iraq, one as an embedded reporter aboard an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea during the Afghan war, and one in Pakistan during the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl.
While in Iraq, Kofman was embedded with US Marines in the southern part of the country. He also traveled extensively to some of the most troubled regions, including Fallujah and Samarra. In July 2003 Kofman reported on the declining morale of US troops in the region as their tours of duty kept getting extended. The story was picked up by outlets around the world when one soldier called on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign.
Kofman has also reported regularly from Latin America and the Caribbean. He spent a month in Haiti in early 2004 when guerillas took control of much of the country. He was the only network television journalist to interview President Jean Bertrand Aristide before the President fled the country.
He has traveled extensively in Colombia, covering US efforts to wipe out the drug trade in that country. In September 2003 he flew aboard President Alvaro Uribe’s government jet as the President made a surprise visit to a small city under guerilla control. In May 2002 he traveled into the Andes aboard Colombian military helicopters, following the anti-narcotic police as they blew up cocaine production labs deep in the jungle.
Kofman’s responsibilities also include Cuba, which he has visited half a dozen times, reporting on the impact of the long stalemate between the US and that country. He was also among the first group of journalists reporting from the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba when Afghan prisoners of war were first brought there in January 2002.
Kofman’s reporting has also taken him to Mexico, Chile, Honduras, Venezuela, Argentina, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. His extensive work covering instability in developing countries has given him unique insights into the challenges of establishing stable democracies in third world nations.
Kofman’s work for ABC News has won him an Edward R. Murrow Award, a duPont Award, and he shared a special Emmy Award for ABC’s coverage of the attacks on September 11, 2001. He received two Emmy nominations in 2007.
Kofman came to ABC News from CBS News, where he was a correspondent in the network's New York Bureau. At CBS he reported for the “CBS Evening News” and “Sunday Morning,” covering stories from Moscow, London and across the U.S. Before joining CBS, Kofman was a correspondent at CBC National News in Toronto.
During his 11 years at the CBC, he was host of an award-winning weekly current affairs program, anchor of the CBC's Toronto newscast, a network radio host, and sub-anchor for the CBC's flagship nightly network newscast, “The National.” He has won several major Canadian journalism awards, including the National Media Human Rights Award for a ground-breaking 1987 CBC documentary on AIDS discrimination. He began his television career at Global Television News in Toronto in 1982.
Kofman speaks French and Spanish. Born in Toronto, he is a graduate of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, where he studied political science.
