Ben Wedeman
Encyclopedia
Ben Wedeman is an American journalist. He is CNN
senior correspondent in Cairo
, Egypt
who was based 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 originally 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 dialect
s of Arabic
and familiar with the culture(s).
, 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 Cambodian Civil War
- then attended boarding school
s 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 the University of London
's School of Oriental and African Studies
with a masters degree in Middle Eastern Studies
. He is married with three children, and currently lives in Cairo
.
In August 2011 he was in Sabah, Libya covering the 2011 revolution that overthrew Moammar Gaddafi. Pursuing a lead which led him to an abandoned warehouse, he discovered thousands of barrels containing bags of a yellow powder labeled to be radioactive. It was later confirmed by the IAEA that this powder was Yellowcake
Uranium.
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
senior correspondent in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
who was based in Jerusalem. Before Jerusalem he lived in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
where he was CNN's Bureau Chief. Prior to that, he was CNN's Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
Bureau chief. He was originally hired by CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
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 dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s of Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
and familiar with the culture(s).
Biography
Wedeman was born in Washington, DC. His father is a retired diplomat. Ben spent most of his childhood outside of the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, after having moved with his family to South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
in 1968. Subsequently, he lived with his family in Bangkok, Thailand; Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security,...
, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
- during the Cambodian Civil War
Cambodian Civil War
The Cambodian Civil War was a conflict that pitted the forces of the Communist Party of Kampuchea and their allies the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Viet Cong against the government forces of Cambodia , which were supported by the United States and the Republic of Vietnam The Cambodian...
- then attended boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
s in Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
(in 1974-75, just as the civil war
Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 150,000 to 230,000 civilian fatalities. Another one million people were wounded, and today approximately 350,000 people remain displaced. There was also a mass exodus of...
broke out); Tangier
Tangier
Tangier, also Tangiers is a city in northern Morocco with a population of about 700,000 . It lies on the North African coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel...
, Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
; and Windsor
Windsor, Connecticut
Windsor is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, and was the first English settlement in the state. It lies on the northern border of Connecticut's capital, Hartford. The population was estimated at 28,778 in 2005....
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
(USA). He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
with a Bachelor’s degree in Oriental Languages and Linguistics and from the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
's School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...
with a masters degree in Middle Eastern Studies
Middle Eastern studies
Middle Eastern studies is a name given to a number of academic programs associated with the study of the history, culture, politics, economies, and geography of the Middle East, an area that is generally interpreted to cover a range of nations extending from North Africa in the west to the Chinese...
. He is married with three children, and currently lives in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
.
In August 2011 he was in Sabah, Libya covering the 2011 revolution that overthrew Moammar Gaddafi. Pursuing a lead which led him to an abandoned warehouse, he discovered thousands of barrels containing bags of a yellow powder labeled to be radioactive. It was later confirmed by the IAEA that this powder was Yellowcake
Yellowcake
Yellowcake is a kind of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. Yellowcake concentrates are prepared by various extraction and refining methods, depending on the types of ores...
Uranium.
Awards
- With his team, he won the 1996 overseas press club Edward R. Murrow AwardEdward Murrow Award (OPC)The Edward Murrow Award is a journalism award given by the Overseas Press Club of America annually since 1978, for "Best TV interpretation or documentary on international affairs."- External links :*...
for Best TV interpretation or documentary on foreign affairsForeign AffairsForeign Affairs is an American magazine and website on international relations and U.S. foreign policy published since 1922 by the Council on Foreign Relations six times annually...
for the network’s coverage of JordanJordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
’s relationship with IsraelIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
after their peace treaty, as well as for its coverage of IraqIraqIraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
under Saddam HusseinSaddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
.
- He led the team that won an Emmy awardEmmy AwardAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for its 2000 coverage of the civil warSierra Leone Civil WarThe Sierra Leone Civil War began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front , with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia , intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government...
in Sierra LeoneSierra LeoneSierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
. 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 Lebanon War, where they stayed in Lebanon, documenting the experience of the Lebanese peopleDemographics of LebanonThis article is about the demographic features of the population of Lebanon, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....
.
- In 2010, Ben won the Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting Award at the sixth annual International Media Awards in London, hosted by the International Council for Press and BroadcastingInternational Council for Press and BroadcastingThe council is a subsidiary body of the Next Century Foundation, an organisation which deals primarily with conflict resolution issues and holds an annual International Media Awards in London...