Clarissa Ward Biography
Clarissa Ward is a war reporter serving as the chief international correspondent for CNN. She previously worked as a foreign news correspondent for CBS News based in London. She is multilingual and can speak French, Italian, Russian, Arabic and Spanish, and basic Mandarin Chinese.
Throughout her career, she has won multiple awards including; nine Emmy awards, Two George Foster Peabody Awards, two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards, wo Edward R. Murrow Awards for distinguished journalism, the 2017 David Kaplan Award from the Overseas Press Club as well as honors from the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association.
Clarissa Ward Age
Ward was born on January 30, 1980 in London, united Kingdom.
Clarissa Ward Height
Clarissa stands at a height of 5 feet 11 inches tall.
Clarissa Ward Nationality
She is a British- American national. She was born in London and grew up in the Upper East Side in Manhattan.
Clarissa Ward Education
What Did Clarissa Ward Study? Ward studied comparative literature at Yale University, graduating with a distinction. She also received an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Middlebury College in Vermont in 2013.
Clarissa Ward Parents
Clarissa is the daughter of Rodney Ward and Donna Ward. Her parents separated when she was 2 years old and she moved to the US with her mom. Her mother is an interior designer. Their previous home on South Ocean Boulevard was awarded the Schuler Award from the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach.
Who is Clarissa Ward Father?
Her father, Rodney Ward is an investment banker who was one of the longest-serving investment bankers at UBS and architect of its expansion in China. In July 2007, he stepped down from his role as chairman of the bank’s Asian investment banking division and become its honorary president after more than 30 years with UBS. He helped UBS secure the first licence awarded to foreign institutions to invest in domestic shares.
He began his career in 1972, as a relationship banker at SG Warburg. He was head of Asia-Pacific operations, a role he continued after SG Warburg was bought by Swiss Bank Corporation in 1995. He left Asia to cover Russia and Africa from a Zurich base, but was lured back to Hong Kong to head investment banking in 1998 following the merger of SBC Warburg with UBS.
Clarissa Ward Siblings
Clarissa is the only child of Rodney Ward and Donna Ward.
Is Clarissa Ward Jewish – Religion
Clarissa has not publicly shared her religious beliefs.
Clarissa Ward Husband
Is Clarissa Ward Married? Ward married her husband Philipp von Bernstorff in November 2016 in London at Chelsea Old Town hall followed by lunch at their Notting Hill home. The couple first met in 2007 at a dinner party in Moscow.
Who is Philipp von Bernstorff
Philipp is a managing partner Vulpes Distressed Fund at Vulpes Investment Management as well as a fund manager Eastern Europe.
He has previously worked at Artradis Management as Senior Vice President for Russian Opportunities Fund’s investment team. Prior to that, he was Director Equity Sales and Trading for the investment firm IFD Kapital, the largest non-state financial company in Russia and an affiliate of Lukoil, and previously a Vice-President for Centre Invest Group in Moscow.
Philips holds an Honours degree from Staffordshire University in Business Economics and a Masters of Science in International Politics from the Moscow State Institute for International Relations. He is fluent in German, English, Spanish and Russian.
Clarissa Ward Children
Clarissa and her husband has three kids; Ezra Albrecht Nikolas Nour who was born on March 2, 2018, Caspar Hugo Augustus Idris Von Bernstorff born on June 29, 2020 and Inigo Alexander (Iggy) born on May 23, 2023. Iggy was admitted to ICU after birth with low oxygen levels with fears that he may have had a seizure. He went through an EKG, Echo and MRI. Fortunately the test came negative.
Clarissa Ward CNN
Clarissa Ward is CNN’s chief international correspondent based in London. She joined the network in 2015. Here she has covered major stories including, investigated Russian trolls operating in Ghana and Nigeria to stoke racial tensions and stir up social unrest in the US. She traveled to one of the operation’s headquarters in Ghana, where she interviewed one of the trolls and tracked down the person running the operation, a Ghanaian who lives in Russia.
She has also contributed to CNN’s breaking news coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic, the crisis between the US and Iran earlier this year, tracking the story from the US, Iraq — including the site of an Iranian missile attack — and Ukraine with every major development. When Turkey launched a military operation targeting America’s Kurdish partners in northern Syria last fall, Ward was on the ground in Syria covering the chaos of civilians fleeing their homes amid military strikes. Her reporting on the Turkish incursion helped earn the network an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Breaking News Coverage category this year.
In 2019 Ward investigated Russia’s use of mercenaries in a two-part series for CNN, ‘Putin’s Private Army.’ For this months-long, Emmy Award-winning investigation, Ward secured the first on-camera interview with a former fighter for Wagner — Russia’s most notorious private military contractor. She traveled to the Central African Republic, to look at growing Russian mercenary activity on the continent. After visiting a diamond mine with ties to a Russian oligarch, Ward and her team were followed and intimidated by a car full of Russians. After their reports came out, they were targeted by a Russian media propaganda campaign trying to discredit their reporting.
This followed Ward gaining unprecedented access to Taliban-controlled territory in Afghanistan for an exclusive report, ’36 Hours with the Taliban.’ Ward and CNN field producer Salma Abdelaziz spent time at a local madrasa, where dozens of children — boys and girls — pored over their Qurans, and a Taliban-run clinic in the village of Pashma Qala.
In 2018 she reported extensively on the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, even obtaining exclusive footage that showed a Saudi operative posing as Khashoggi in an attempt to cover up the killing. That report on Khashoggi’s body double was recognized with a Golden Nymph from the Monte Carlo Television Festival in 2019 and CNN’s overall coverage of Khashoggi’s murder was recognized with a prestigious 2020 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award.
Ward also fronted ‘Shadow Over Europe,’ a CNN investigation into the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe in 2018, traveling to Poland, Germany and France to see how these countries were tackling this rise of anti-Semitic incidents and stereotypes. ‘Shadow Over Europe’ was recognized with a 2019 Edward R. Murrow Award in the News Series category for Television Networks.
Clarissa Ward Fox News
Prior to working for CNN, she worked for Fox News, first as an overnight desk assistant in 2003 before she became an assignment editor for the network. Here she worked on the international desk coordinating coverage for stories such as the capture of Saddam Hussein, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and the deaths of Yasir Arafat and Pope John Paul II. In 2006, she worked as a field producer for Fox News. She produced coverage of the Israeli-Lebanese war, the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit and subsequent Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip, the trial of Saddam Hussein and the 2005 Iraqi constitutional referendum.
She was also based in Beirut and worked as a correspondent where covered the execution of Saddam Hussein, the Iraq War troop surge of 2007, the Beirut Arab University riots and the 2007 Bikfaya bombings. She conducted interviews with notable figures such as Gen. David Petraeus, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih and Lebanese President Emile Lahoud. She also spent time embedded with the U.S. military in Iraq, most notably in Baqubah
Prior to joining Fox News, she was an ABC News correspondent based in Moscow. She reported from Russia for all ABC News broadcasts and platforms, including World News with Charles Gibson, Nightline and Good Morning America, as well as ABC News Radio, and ABC News Now. On assignment in Russia, Ward covered the Russian Presidential elections. She was in Georgia at the time of the Russian intervention into Georgian territory. Ward was transferred to Beijing to serve as the ABC News Asian Correspondent, where she covered the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. She has also covered the war in Afghanistan.
Ward was also a CBS News foreign news correspondent. Here, she was a contributor for 60 Minutes and served as a fill-in anchor on CBS This Morning. She covered many foreign news stories including the Syrian Uprising, Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng’s stay at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the subsequent United States – China negotiations, and the 2014 Ukrainian revolution.
Clarissa Ward Hijab/ Burqa
On August 16, 2021 Clarissa wore a hijab while reporting from Kabul. This was one day after the Taliban took control of the capital of Afghanistan. She said she wore the hijab to walk down the streets of Kabul as women are supposed to wear more conservatively.
“I have seen a few women, but I will say, I have seen far fewer women than I would ordinarily see walking down the streets of Kabu and the women that you do see walking down the streets of Kabul tend to be dressed more conservatively than they were when they were walking down the streets of Kabul yesterday. I’ve seen more burkas today than I had seen in a while. Obviously, I am dressed in a very different way to how I would normally dress to walk down the streets of Kabul.”
Clarissa Ward Meme
A meme of Clarrisa with and without a headscarf went viral. This was after some claimed that she was forced to start wearing a headscarf on air after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. She however clarified said that she did not start wearing a hijab after the Taliban took over the country. She said the photo of her without a headscarf was taken while reporting from inside a private compound while the other she was in the streets.
This meme is inaccurate. The top photo is inside a private compound. The bottom is on the streets of Taliban held Kabul. I always wore a head scarf on the street in Kabul previously, though not w/ hair fully covered and abbaya. So there is a difference but not quite this stark. pic.twitter.com/BmIRFFSdSE
— Clarissa Ward (@clarissaward) August 16, 2021
Ted Cruz Clarissa Ward
Senator Ted Cruz retweeted the meme commenting “Is there an enemy of America for whom @CNN WON’T cheerlead? (In mandatory burkas, no less.)”
Is there an enemy of America for whom @CNN WON’T cheerlead?
(In mandatory burkas, no less.) https://t.co/9O6pe8yROM
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) August 16, 2021
CNN called out the senator saying he was spreading the misleading and inaccurate meme. CNN responded; “Rather than running off to Cancun in tough times, @clarissaward is risking her life to tell the world what’s happening. That’s called bravery. Instead of RTing a conspiracy theorist’s misleading soundbite, perhaps your time would be better spent helping Americans in harm’s way.”
This was in reference to when the senator took a flight to Cancun in February during a power crisis in Texas.
Clarissa Ward Book
Ward is the author of ‘On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist’ (Penguin Press), a new memoir that details her singular career as a conflict reporter and how she has documented the violent remaking of the world from close range.
Clarissa Ward Fake
On Oct 11, 2023, while in Israel covering the Hamas attack, Clarissa and her team took shelter from rockets while covering the ongoing conflict. A fake video, which was an altered version of the original, was shared on X claiming the team orchestrated the attack. The video shows a CNN news team going off the road on foot and falling to the ground, with a voiceover of a man’s voice appearing to guide the crew. “Look round as if you’re in danger, try to look nice and scared.”
Clarissa Ward Salary
Ward earns a salary of an annual base salary of around $200,000. She also has an estimated net worth of $3 million