Michael Holmes (broadcaster)


Michael Holmes is an Australian news anchor and correspondent for CNN International. Since November 2014, he anchored CNNI's CNN Today with Amara Walker. In 2019 he began anchoring CNN Newsroom with Michael Holmes at 12a, 2a and 3a ET Saturday -Monday. Before this, he anchored the 10 am ET edition of International Desk and in early 2013 joined Suzanne Malveaux as co-anchor of CNN USA's Around The World at noon ET, an hour-long bulletin focusing on international news. Previously, he was the host of CNNI's behind-the-news program BackStory.
He attended Wesley College, Perth High School from 1973–77. Holmes began his career at the Daily News newspaper in Perth at the age of 17. Prior to his work at CNN, he was a reporter for more than a decade for Australia's Nine Network in Perth, Sydney, London and Melbourne. He spent four years based in London, covering Northern Ireland, the first Intifada, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first Gulf War and other major stories. After returning to Australia he was later deployed to cover the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
He was the first Australian anchor hired by CNN International, and has reported extensively around the world, including nearly 20 deployments to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as the Israeli–Palestinian conflict including multiple assignments in Gaza and the West Bank and the 2011 uprising in Libya.
In 2004 he was in a CNN convoy ambushed by insurgents in Iraq which cost the lives of two staff members. One deployment to Iraq during the deadliest time of the war resulted in the CNN Documentary "Month of Mayhem", which won the 2007 CINE "Golden Eagle". He has won multiple other awards including two Peabody Awards for coverage of the Iraq War and the battle for Mosul in 2017, and an Edward R Murrow Award for coverage of Hurricane Maria.
Holmes has more than 40 years experience in journalism and has worked as a foreign correspondent in dozens of countries. He currently resides in Atlanta.