Hala Gorani

Hala Basha-Gorani (; born March 1, 1970) is an American journalist, working as a correspondent for NBC News. Previously she was an anchor and correspondent for CNN International, based in London. She is also a war correspondent. She previously anchored CNN's Hala Gorani Tonight weeknights at 8 p.m. CET. Gorani co-hosted Your World Today with Jim Clancy until February 2009 and then International Desk until April 2014 from CNN's Atlanta headquarters.

Since February 2022, Gorani has been a special war anchor based in Lviv, in western Ukraine, during the Russian invasion. Although broadcast in the late evening to her American audience, the time difference means that she is coming live in the early morning from Ukraine. According to her, she comes from "quite an international background. ... I'm a U.S. citizen with Syrian and French parents." Her parents emigrated from Aleppo, Syria in 1966. She has an older brother. In 2002 and in 2007, she led CNN's coverage of the respective French presidential elections.

In 2008, Gorani attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and she moderated the closing session that featured several business and political leaders, including Tony Blair, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel and JP Morgan Chase & Co. Chairman and CEO James Dimon.

Gorani formerly hosted Inside the Middle East on CNN International, the monthly show featuring stories on the most important social, political and cultural issues in the region. During her five years as host, she reported on several colorful and thought-provoking stories including poverty in oil-rich Bahrain; everyday struggles for artists living in Iraq; and gay life in the Middle East, which was a first on international television and earned a nomination for a Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) award.

Gorani has interviewed Jimmy Carter, Tony Blair, Amr Moussa, Rafik Hariri, Saeb Erakat, Nouri al-Maliki, Ehud Barak, the Dalai Lama, Shimon Peres and Carla Bruni, among others. Gorani avoids discussing her political and religious views, citing the need for professional neutrality.

In May 2015, Gorani was awarded an honorary doctorate by George Mason University and delivered the commencement address to that year's graduating students.

On the weekend of November 13–15, 2015, Gorani was a principal member of the extensive CNN team that covered the action, aftermath and investigation of terrorist attacks in Paris, France where some 130 people were killed.

In 2018, Gorani was nominated for another News and Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage, Manchester Concert Attack. That same year, she and her team received an Emmy Award for her show's coverage of "Syria: Gasping for Life in Khan Sheikhoun."

In a commencement address, Gorani offered these observations to the new graduates: Gorani says that as a journalist, career defining moments are those where one can identify that the work did make a difference; and the being different is a good thing because those differences will make a person memorable. Gorani advised the students to cultivate their differences and from them the students will find their strength.

Personal life

Gorani considers Paris her home, which is also where her mother resides. From 2004 to 2014, she was based at the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and in 2014 she moved back to London.

While researching her book, Gorani traced part of her familial ancestry to Abkhazia.