Kyra Phillips
KYRA PHILLIPS
Correspondent, ABC News; Anchor, ABC News Live
Kyra Phillips is a correspondent for ABC News and an anchor for ABC News Live based in Washington, D.C. Kyra covered the White House during the Trump Administration. Prior to joining ABC News, she was an award-winning anchor for “Live From,” “CNN Newsroom,” and “American Morning.” She moved to HLN in 2012 to anchor “Raising America with Kyra Phillips,” a daily interactive program focused on news impacting the modern American family. She was also a correspondent for the CNN investigative and documentary units.
Her work has taken her all over the world, covering breaking news across the Middle East. During her four assignments covering the war in Iraq, she embedded with troops aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, documented substance abuse in the Iraqi military, reported exclusively from inside Saddam Hussein’s cell, and traveled to Baghdad’s School for the Blind. Phillips became the first female journalist to fly in an F-14 air-to-air combat training mission over the Persian Gulf, and her war coverage secured her the Atlanta Press Club’s National Reporter of the Year in 2007.
Here in America, she has documented everything from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the impact on the people of New Orleans to rising racial tensions in Jena, Louisiana, after nooses were hung outside the town’s high school. Her reporting earned her the top documentary award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Phillips has devoted much of her career to long-form investigative reporting. She has investigated sexual misconduct allegations in the United States’ top military academies, sexual predators employed at some of the United States’ most famous theme parks, and war atrocities committed by a former commander in Somalia’s army.
Throughout her career, she has gained exclusive access to some of the world’s most public figures, from former presidents to Mother Teresa. Kyra sat down with the Rev. Billy Graham in his last television interview and embedded with Admiral Thad Allen, National Incident Commander for the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, gaining unprecedented access to the disaster site.
Kyra participated in specialized aviation instruction with the Navy’s elite TOPGUN School and has extensive police S.W.A.T. training.
Prior to CNN, Phillips served as an investigative reporter and anchor for KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. She was a weekend anchor and reporter for WDSU-TV in New Orleans and anchored and reported for WLUK-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Phillips has also served as morning anchor and reporter for KAMC-TV in Lubbock, Texas, and as a field producer for CNN-Telemundo in Washington, D.C.
Phillips has won Peabody Awards, Emmy® Awards and Edward R. Murrow Awards for investigative reporting. Additionally, she has won numerous Golden Microphones and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
She volunteers for a variety of organizations that help those in need. She is a trustee of The Fisher House Foundation and serves on the Board for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. She received the Global Down Syndrome Foundation’s Quincy Jones Exceptional Advocacy Award in 2013 and is now a Global Ambassador. Phillips is also the co-author of “The Whole Life Fertility Plan,” published in 2015, a contributing writer on “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Billy Graham & Me” and is a 2017 40 Over 40 honoree.
Phillips earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Southern California. She is married and the proud parent of twins.
