Award-winning CNN journalist David McKenzie is to take on a new position as an international correspondent based in Beijing. McKenzie is moving to Beijing after five years as CNN’s correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya, where he won international awards for his coverage of the African experience and reported from across the continent for all of CNN’s platforms.
“David brings to Beiji
ng a portfolio of award-winning coverage from across Africa and beyond,” said Parisa Khosravi, Senior Vice President of International Newsgathering. “China is featured extensively in CNN’s international output and we are delighted to add him to our team covering this crucial and compelling story.”
McKenzie was the first international reporter to gain access to Sudan’s controversial oil fields to report on alleged pollution and was one of the first correspondents to uncover the threat of piracy off the coast of Somalia. In 2011, McKenzie investigated the plight of the mentally ill in Kenya for CNN’s documentary series World’s Untold Stories. The programme’s broadcast resulted in domestic and international human rights groups calling for government intervention. The matter was brought to the attention of the Kenyan government, who have called for change; and the documentary, Locked Up and Forgotten, won the Amnesty International Media Awards in the “International Television and Radio” category.
Since joining CNN, McKenzie has interviewed many high-profile personalities and leaders including Nobel Prize winners Wangari Maathai and Desmond Tutu, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda. An avid sports fan, McKenzie was also a crucial part of CNN’s World Cup 2010 coverage as he travelled across South Africa to take the pulse of the country. McKenzie joined CNN from UNICEF, where he served as a correspondent and producer with their Africa Services Unit. In that role, he reported from more than 30 countries in Africa, covering stories on the instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
