Brianna Keilar

Brianna Marie Keilar,^[1] (born 21 September 1980) is the senior political correspondent and anchor for CNN in the Washington, D.C. bureau. She previously worked as a White House correspondent, Congressional correspondent and general assignment correspondent for CNN in Washington. Prior to that, Keilar worked at CNN Newsource as a national correspondent, also in Washington.

Early life and education

Keilar was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA.^[2] Her father Glenn is Australian, and her mother Miriam was American. The Keilars were stationed in Australia at the time of Brianna's birth.^[3] In 1982, Keilar and her family moved to the United States and settled in Orange County, California. Keilar graduated from Mission Viejo High School in 1998, where she was voted homecoming queen in her senior year.^[4] Keilar graduated in 2001 from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was admitted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. She received her dual bachelor's degrees in Mass Communications and Psychology in 2001.^[5]

Career

Keilar joined CNN as a correspondent for CNN Newsource, providing breaking news coverage and reports from the nation’s capital for approximately 800 CNN Newsource partner stations. Previously she joined Newsource from CBS News where she served as an anchor, reporter and producer for a CBS newscast that aired on mtvU, MTV's college network. She was also a fill-in anchor on CBS News’ overnight newscast, Up to the Minute, and a freelance reporter for CBS Evening News Weekend Edition.

While covering Congress, Keilar earned the 2009 National Press Foundation Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress for her fall 2008 coverage of the $700 billion bank bailout.^[6] As a general assignment correspondent for the network, she covered a wide range of stories, including the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, where she was the first CNN correspondent on the ground.^[7] In 2013, she spoke at the commencement ceremony for her alma mater.

Personal

Keilar married Dave French on May 2, 2009.^[8] They later divorced. Keilar's mother died on May 17, 2016.^[9]

In July 2016, Keilar announced that she was engaged to Fernando Lujan, a director on the National Security Council at the White House.^[10] During CNN's New Year's Eve special on December 31, 2016, Brooke Baldwin announced that Keilar and Lujan had married the previous evening in Las Vegas.^[11] She gave birth to a baby boy named Antonio on June 8, 2018.

References

External links

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• http://www.cnn.com/profiles/brianna-keilar-profile CNN profile