Sara Ganim Biography
Sara Elizabeth Ganim is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and documentary film director. She is a former CNN investigative correspondent and host of he Mayor of Maple Avenue podcast and ‘Why Don’t We Know’ podcast.
Sara Ganim Age
She was born on September 9, 1987
Sara Ganim Education
She graduated from Penn State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications with Political Science minor. She is a former Spencer Fellow at Columbia University. She served as an adjunct professor at Penn State University for 5 months.
Sara Ganim Parents
Sara is the daughter of Franziska S. Ganim and Bruce J. Ganim. Her father is a senior vice president and partner of Chemtron, a chemical manufacturer to the hospitality industry in Davie, Fla while her mother is an executive assistant for the MEI Healthcare Group in Coral Springs.
Sara Ganim Husband
Sara is married to Danny Cevallos who is criminal defense attorney and co-founder of Cevallos & Wong, LLP. He also serves as an “Of Counsel” attorney at Edelman & Edelman, P.C., in New York. Danny is also a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC and a defence
The couple met while they were both working at CNN in Atlanta.They began dating in 2014 during one of Danny’s criminal trials on St. Croix. They got married on May 21, 2018 at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau.
Sara Ganim Children
Sara is a mother to her two daughters; Leyna Franziska Cevallos born in November 2018 and Sabrina Linde Ganim Cevallos born in November 2021.
Sara Ganim CNN
Sara is a former CNN investigative correspondent. She spent seven years at CNN covering a range of issues, including government agencies, ethics and conflicts, sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill, the rise of the anti-fascist movement in the U.S., deadly hazing at American Universities, the NCAA’s mishandling of concussions, and American drinking water issues.
During her tenure, she won a Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her investigative report exposing the low reading levels of some college athletes.
Prior to joining CNN, she was an investigative reporter for the PennLive/The Patriot-News. While there she broke the story of the grand jury investigation into Jerry Sandusky, the former defensive coordinator for the storied Penn State University football program. This earned her a Pulitzer Prize in 2012.
She began her career in journalism as a freelance reporter for Sun Sentinel Media Group. She later joined The Daily Collegian as a reporter for seven months. She interned at The Associated Press for four months. In 2006 she joined Centre Daily Times as a crime reporter where she stayed for four years before joining The Patriot News as a crime reporter.
How Did Sara Ganim find out about Sandusky
In 2009 when she was a crime reporter for Centre Daily Times, she received a tip about Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case story. She heard a rumor from m “a regular conversation” with someone in State College who claimed Sandusky was under an investigation that “could be a big deal.”
In 2011 when she joined The Patriot-News as a crime reporter she continued the investigation. She said during an interview that her source went to “great lengths” to falsify the allegations, and take them back, after initially declaring they were true. She added that there were powerful movement to keep [allegations against Sandusky] quiet.
What solidified the tip for her was when Sandusky didn’t appear in his annual gala for the now-defunct charity, The Second Mile.
“We started asking around, ‘Where is he?’” Ganim said. “It wasn’t a very coordinated effort to keep it quiet… multiple board members were telling multiple stories about why he wasn’t there.”
From there, Ganim said, news tips and leads began circulating among the “press box of people” covering State College and Penn State football at the time.
The Patriot-News published Sara’s first Sandusky-related article on March 31, 2022 which provided a timeline proving Sandusky was the subject of a grand jury investigation for alleged indecent assault of a teenage boy.The then 15-year-old boy, aron Fisher — came forward with allegations that Sandusky “had inappropriate contact with him over a four-year period, starting when he was 10.” The article also mentioned the May 1998 Penn State University Police and Public Safety report of Sandusky showering with a then-12-year-old boy in a locker room inside of the Lasch football building.
Sandusky was arrested that November and survivors from different areas testified. Sara says the article was met with a lot of resistance as people viewed him as a hero but she said the goal was to help the victims.
Sara Ganim Podcast
Sara is the host of the Mayor of Maple Avenue, a podcast with Advance Local and Meadowlark Media which was launched in 2021. It is about the intersection of trauma and addiction and societal failures in the wake of the #meToo movement. She is also hosted the award winning podcast Why Don’t We Know, which explored government secrecy. She began hosting the podcast after she was named the University of Florida’s first Hearst Journalism Fellow at the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information in June 2019.
Sara Ganim UFC
Sara is a journalist in residence at the University of Florida. She joined the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications as a Brechner Center Hearst Journalism Fellow and was named a Spencer Education Journalism Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year.
In July 2019 she joined the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information on a two-year Hearst Journalism Fellowship focused on data deserts in public education. During her Hearst Fellowship she developed the “Why Don’t We Know” podcast, an 18-month investigation into government secrecy.
The podcast received Education Writers Association Award in the Smaller Newsroom Public Service category for their Education Records podcast, which explores the case of four women who were victims of sexual violence and claimed their universities kept their own education records from them — in clear violation of federal law.
Sara Ganim Columbia
She is also a James Madison Visiting Professor on First Amendment Issues at Columbia University in NYC since July 2022. She is a former Spencer Fellow at the same institute.
Sara Ganim Production
Sara is the co-owner of a production company, called Cedar Production, alongside her husband Danny, they started the company in 2019. She made her first independent film, ‘No Defense’ in 2020. She has also consulted and reported for several other films. In 2018 she consulted on HBO film Paterno. She was the main reporter for the Emmy-nominated CNN documentary Deadly Haze.
Her first documentary was in 2018 titles ‘Dirty Water’ which was a 30-minute investigative piece on drinking water in rural America which aired on CNN.
Sara Ganim Social Media
Twitter: @sganim
Instagram: @saraganim