Alex Crawford

Alexandra Christine Crawford, (born 15 April 1962) is a British journalist who currently works as a Special Correspondent for Sky News based in Turkey. She has been named Journalist of the Year fives times by the Royal Television Society and is known for reporting from the front lines of conflict zones.

Biography Crawford was born in Surrey in 1962 to an English-Chinese mother and a Scottish father. She was brought up in Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe and educated at St John's Convent in Kitwe, Zambia and Chispite Junior and Chisipite Senior School in Harare, Zimbabwe and later at Cobham Hall School in Kent.

Crawford first worked in journalism at the Wokingham Times, completing a National Council for the Training of Journalists newspaper course in Newcastle while working there.

She subsequently worked for the BBC and for TV-am before joining Sky News when it was launched in 1989. She also covered the raid of Bab al-Azizia live from outside the compound, and was one of the first journalists to go inside once the raid was over.

Coverage of the Northern Mali conflict Crawford was active in covering the Northern Mali conflict from 15 January 2013 until the end of French military operations. Her Sky News team was the first to enter Timbuktu after it was liberated by French forces.

Coverage of the Victoria Falls In 2015, Crawford reported that the Victoria Falls, separating the nations of Zambia and Zimbabwe, was drying up. Tourism promoters and local leaders in both Zimbabwe and Zambia accused Crawford of being an alarmist and 'creating the news she reported on', by insisting on what the interviewees said in her report. The interviewees included a range of local workers, civilians, WWF leaders and an exclusive interview with the Zambian President who declared the drought the result of climate change. Every 10 years or so, the Zambezi river which passes through the falls experiences very high or very low water levels, a fact that Crawford was accused of not including in her report.

Coverage of the Syrian Civil War In April 2019, amid the Dawn of Idlib military operation, Crawford and her media team, including Sky producer Martin Vowles and two civilian activists came under fire from Syrian government forces in the contested village of Hbit in the northern Idlib Governorate. Crawford said, "we were spotted by a military drone and then repeatedly shot at with what we believe were 125mm shells probably fired from a T-72 Russian battle tank". Bilal Abdul Kareem, an activist from New York, who had been acting as Crawford's guide, was injured in the shelling by shrapnel, and taken to Khan Shaykhun for medical treatment.

Coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine Crawford currently covers the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, having begun 5 March 2022. On 9 March Alex Crawford interviewed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in English, discussing the current state of the conflict.

Personal life Crawford lives in Istanbul, Turkey, with her husband, sports journalist Richard Edmondson. They have four children, born ca. 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2002.

Publications Colonel Gaddafi's Hat. London: Collins, 2012. How to Survive in a War Zone. London: Collins, 2012.