Ian James Lee (born 1984) is an American journalist based in Britain for CBS News. Prior to working for CBS, he worked for CNN, and, before that, Lee was also the multimedia editor at the

Daily News Egypt ''Daily News Egypt'' (''DNE'') is an English-language daily Egyptian newspaper established in 2005 and relaunched in June 2012. Under former owner Egyptian Media Services, it was distributed with the '' International Herald Tribune'' as a supp ...

from 2009 to 2011. During that time, he also was a freelance video journalist for

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Ma ...

and spent a year as a package producer for

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was esta ...

. Lee has covered the 2011 Arab Spring, Euromaidan, Sochi Winter Olympics,

2013 Egyptian coup d'état The 2013 Egyptian coup d'etat took place on 3 July 2013. Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi led a coalition to remove the democratically elected President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, from power and suspended the Egyptian constitu ...

in Egypt,

2014 Gaza War The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge ( he, מִבְצָע צוּק אֵיתָן, translit=Miv'tza Tzuk Eitan, ), was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory that ha ...

2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt On 15 July 2016, a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces, organized as the Peace at Home Council, attempted a coup d'état against state institutions, including the government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They attempted to seize cont ...

, and

2017 North Korea crisis Seventeen or 17 may refer to: *17 (number), the natural number following 16 and preceding 18 * one of the years 17 BC, AD 17, 1917, 2017 Literature Magazines * ''Seventeen'' (American magazine), an American magazine * ''Seventeen'' (Japanese m ...

, among other things.

Early life

Lee was born in

Lander, Wyoming Lander is a city in Wyoming, United States, and the county seat of Fremont County. It is in central Wyoming, along the Middle Fork of the Popo Agie River, just south of the Wind River Indian Reservation. It is a tourism center with several nea ...

, USA. Lee graduated in 2007 from the

Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (often abbreviated to The Cronkite School by its students and faculty), is one of the 24 independent schools at Arizona State University and is named in honor of veteran broadcast jo ...

at Arizona State University with a bachelor's degree in journalism, along with certificates in Islamic Studies and Arabic. He was accepted into an internship program funded by the Carnegie-Knight Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education a. In 2008, Lee received a Fulbright scholarship, among 12 Arizona State University graduates selected for a Fulbright that. He spent a year at American University in Cairo, Egypt, studying the reporting differences between newspapers written in English and those written in Arabic.

Career

Lee began working for CNN after a church bombing in Alexandria, Egypt, on New Year’s Eve 2010. One of Lee’s Tweets during the

January 25 Revolution The 2011 Egyptian revolution, also known as the 25 January revolution ( ar, ثورة ٢٥ يناير; ), began on 25 January 2011 and spread across Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "Police ho ...

is cited in the book ''A Twitter Year: 365 Days in 140 Characters'' by Kate Bussmann. Lee's Tweets are also preserved in an archived collection maintained by the American University in Cairo's Rare Books and Special Collections Library as part of the blogs, Twitter feeds, local and regional media coverage, and other sites related to the January 25th Revolution. Lee is also quoted in ''News Now: Visual Storytelling in the Digital Age'' by Susan Green, Mark Lodato, B. William Silcock, and Carol Schwalbe. While covering the

Libyan Revolution of 2011 The First Libyan Civil War was an armed conflict in 2011 in the North African country of Libya that was fought between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and rebel groups that were seeking to oust his government. It erupted with the Lib ...

, Lee was injured in Sirte by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) that exploded next to him. It killed an ambulance driver and sent shrapnel into his leg. During the 2013-15 detention of Al-Jazeera journalists by Egypt, CNN’s Lee reported several times on the Al Jazeera English news channel in a show of solidarity with the imprisoned journalists. Lee's coverage of the Al Jazeera trial is documented in the book, ''The Marriott Cell: An Epic Journey from Cairo's

Scorpion Prison The Al-Aqrab Prison ( ar, سجن العقرب, lit=The Scorpion Prison; official name Tora Prison 992 Maximum-Security) is a supermax prison in Helwan, Egypt, south of Cairo. It is used for political prisoners and opponents of the Egyptian gover ...

to Freedom'' by

Mohamed Fahmy Mohamed Fadel Fahmy ( ar, محمد فاضل فهمي ; born April 27, 1974) is an Egyptian-born Canadian journalist, war correspondent and author. He has worked extensively in the Middle East, North Africa, for CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera Engl ...

. Lee was on board the Royal Caribbean ''Oasis of the Seas'' in the Atlantic Ocean to cover the

solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 The solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, dubbed the "Great American Eclipse" by the media, was a total solar eclipse visible within a band that spanned the contiguous United States from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts. It was also visible as a ...

. He was on ''

Anderson Cooper 360° ''Anderson Cooper 360°'' (commonly shortened to either ''AC-360'' or ''360'') is an American television news show on CNN and CNN International, hosted by CNN journalist and news anchor Anderson Cooper. Since May 20, 2019, ''360°'' has been b ...

'' while experiencing totality on the cruise liner.

Personal life

Lee married Holly Dagres on July 1, 2016, in a private ceremony on a ranch in Wyoming. The couple met in Cairo, Egypt.

Awards

*2008 – Fulbright Scholarship. *2011 – Emmy Award for ''Revolution in Egypt: President Mubarak Steps Down''. *2011 – Investigative Reporters and Editors’ Tom Renner Award for ''Death in the Desert''. *2011 – Peabody Award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Ian James American television reporters and correspondents American male journalists American war correspondents CNN people News & Documentary Emmy Award winners Peabody Award winners Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication alumni Arizona State University alumni American expatriates in Egypt People from Wyoming 1984 births Living people