Kyra Phillips

Kyra Phillips

Biography

Kyra Phillips anchors the 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. (ET) edition of CNN Newsroom each weekday. Based in the network’s world headquarters in Atlanta, Phillips joined CNN in October 1999.

Among her varied assignments, Phillips completed four tours of reporting in Iraq, not only about the war itself but how it has affected life for the Iraqi people. Her coverage included features about substance abuse as an escape from war, The Baghdad School for the Blind and an exclusive look inside Saddam Hussein’s cell and personal diary and secured her the Atlanta Press Club’s National Reporter of the Year for 2007. Her coverage about race relations and tensions in Jena, La., following the appearance of nooses at the town’s high school earned her a top documentary award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Phillips has traveled to cover and investigate a wide range of breaking news, she garnered a worldwide exclusive with ADM Thad Allen, National Incident Commander for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, gaining unprecedented access to the disaster site, in Alaska for the announcement of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the Atlanta courthouse shooting and Hurricane Katrina from New Orleans in 2005. She has also covered the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, CNN’s Election 2000 and Election 2002 coverage, and the Elian Gonzalez custody controversy. In 2003, Phillips reported as an embedded journalist aboard USS Abraham Lincoln for CNN during the war in Iraq. Phillips wrote and reported about Billy Graham’s last revival in New York City for a CNN Presents documentary.

In January 2002, she spent a month on location in Antarctica, working on a documentary about the science, the danger and the life on Earth’s most frigid continent. Phillips traced the steps of famous explorers, including those of Sir Ernest Shackleton. While there, she also built and slept in an igloo, rappelled down glaciers, introduced viewers to rare penguin colonies and revealed some of the continent’s most interesting scientific discoveries.

In 2002, Phillips became the first female journalist to fly in an F-14 air-to-air combat training mission over the Persian Gulf. For a full month, Phillips produced exclusive reports on the U.S. Navy’s reconnaissance missions from the P-3 aircraft and maritime interdiction operations from USS Paul Hamilton. For the first time ever, television audiences got a look inside the training of Naval Special Warfare, the Navy’s Special Operations Command. Phillips also observed Navy SEALS and Special Warfare Combatant Crewman training.

Phillips has extensive police, SWAT and weapons training. She also has reported on and participated in specialized aviation training with the Navy’s elite TOPGUN School.

In 2001, Phillips was the first network correspondent to gain exclusive access to CAG 9, the elite Navy airwing, as it prepared for the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Her reports took viewers inside the cockpits of the most advanced strike fighter jets in the world and into training as sailors and officers got ready to go overseas and fight the war on terror.

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Before joining CNN in October 1999, Phillips served as an investigative reporter in the Special Assignment Unit for KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. From 1994-1995, she was a weekend anchor and reporter for WDSU-TV in New Orleans. Previously, she anchored the weekend newscasts and reported for WLUK-TV in Green Bay, Wis. Phillips also has served as morning anchor for KAMC-TV in Lubbock, Texas, and as a field producer for CNN-Telemundo in Washington, D.C.

Phillips has won four Emmy awards, two Edward R. Murrow awards for investigative reporting, and in 1997, the Associated Press named her Reporter of the Year. Additionally, she has won numerous Golden Microphones, and other honors. Phillips’ investigation into how a convicted murderer could purchase personal information about children triggered national legislation and earned her the Bill Stout Memorial Award for enterprise reporting. Most recently her work on the Gulf oil spill in 2010 contributed to the network’s winning of a Peabody award.

Since 1992, she has been a Big Sister with national Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America mentoring program. She participates on the board of The Brain Tumor Foundation for Children.

Phillips earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Southern California.

October 2010