Nima Elbagir

Nima Elbagir (born 1978) is an award-winning international television correspondent.

Elbagir joined CNN as a London-based international correspondent.[1] In 2008, she picked up two Foreign Press Association Awards - TV News Story of the Year and Broadcast Journalist of the Year (winner of winners).[2] She had been nominated for other awards including the Amnesty Award for Human Rights Journalism and the One World Broadcast Awards.[3] In 2008, she was shortlisted for Young Journalist of the Year at the Royal Television Society Awards[4] and in 2016, the society named her Specialist Journalist of the Year.[5] Her work had taken her 'to some of the darkest and most difficult places to report on in the past 12 months', said the citation, adding that Elbagir had 'demonstrated great determination and bravery as well as deep humanity. She highlighted the plight of young people moving between continents and had the language skills to follow their journey in a way that no-one else could achieve'. 'Her fearless reports from Africa and the Middle East' meant that she was 'being compared to [CNN's] veteran Christiane Amanpour', wrote media commentator Maggie Brown in 27 February 2016's The Observer.

Early years

She was educated in Sudan and England. She has a BSc in Philosophy from The London School of Economics. She is fluent in Arabic and English.[3]

Career

CNN Correspondent Nima Elbagir accepts the Peabody for CNN's coverage of the kidnapped Nigerian school girls. She is joined on stage by Isha Sesay.

Elbagir began her journalism career with Reuters in December 2002 reporting for them from Sudan, covering the simmering conflict in the country's Darfur region. She moved into broadcast journalism in 2005 joining the launch of More4 News where her exclusives included exposing rape allegations against the African Union in Darfur, getting the first interview with the Aegis security company whistleblower on the Iraq 'Trophy Videos', interviewing Jacob Zuma in the run-up to his 2006 rape trial and being the only Western journalist reporting from Mogadishu during the US bombing of Somalia in January 2007 [6]

In her first documentary with Unreported World "Meet the Janjaweed" she gained unprecedented access to Mohammed Hamdan Dogolo, aka "Hemeti", one of the main Arab Janjaweed Commanders at the heart of the fighting in Darfur. Elbagir and her director Andrew Carter filmed the fighters' Sudanese Army ID cards and Chinese manufactured weaponry - broadcasting the first documentary evidence* of the Sudanese government's direct involvement with the Janjaweed and the role China's arms sales to Darfur are playing in the conflict.

(*The BBC's Newsnight broadcast the first Janjaweed admission of Sudanese Government involvement - an interview with a defector on 17 October 2006 . The defector in that instance did not offer Sudanese Army ID however.)

Notes

  1. ↑ Nima Elbagir joins CNN as international correspondent – CNN Press Room - CNN.com Blogs
  2. ↑ FPA Media Awards 2008 - winners | Media | guardian.co.uk
  3. 1 2 CNN Programs - Anchors/Reporters - Nima Elbagir
  4. ↑ CNN reporter’s award draws Amanpour comparison, Maggie Brown, The Observer 27 February 2016. Retrieved: 28 June 2016.
  5. ↑ Television Journalism Awards 2016, RTS website, 17 February, 2016. Retrieved: 28 June 2016.
  6. ↑ More 4 News reports inside Somalia - Press Gazette
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