Jane Ferguson

Ferguson was born in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, and was educated at The Royal School Armagh before attending The Lawrenceville Prep School in New Jersey[3]. She returned to the UK to study English Literature and Politics at the University of York.

Ferguson was a contracted freelance foreign correspondent for CNN International from 2010 through 2011, reporting from the Middle East and Africa. Living in the UAE at the time, she reported to the CNN Abu Dhabi bureau. She worked alone, filming, producing and reporting stories from Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. Her reporting focused on Al Qaeda offshoots and franchises across the horn of Africa and Yemen[4]. Jane was the first international broadcaster on the ground in Somalia when famine was declared in 2011 and reported from northern Yemen during the 2009 conflict between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels.

From 2011 to 2014 Ferguson worked as an international correspondent for Al Jazeera English. Reporting from across the Middle East, she covered major stories including the 'Arab Spring', war in Afghanistan, Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Syria's civil war[5].

In February 2012 Ferguson was the first correspondent for the network to enter rebel-held Syria. She was smuggled across the border from Lebanon into the Syrian city of Homs, where she filmed, produced and reported an exclusive series from the restive Bar Amr neighborhood[6].

Later that year, she reported from Yemen as Arab Spring protests spread and dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to step down. In 2013 Ferguson was made Afghanistan correspondent and spent a year based in Kabul, reporting extensively from across the country.

In 2015 Ferguson began reporting for PBS NewsHour as a special correspondent. She covered the battle against ISIS in Iraq in 2016, reporting from the front lines throughout the conflict, embedded with Iraqi Army troops, American forces, and Shia militia[7].

Her reporting won a citation from the Overseas Press Awards of America. In 2017 Ferguson reported from inside South Sudan on the civil war and famine gripping the country[8].

The next year, Ferguson was twice smuggled into rebel-held Yemen where her exclusive reports exposed famine conditions amongst the population as a result of the war. Her reporting from Yemen won the 2019 George Polk Award and an Emmy, was nominated for a Peabody and shortlisted for a Livingston Award. [9] [10] [11]

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