Richard Engel Named NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent

NBC News' Senior Middle East Correspondent Richard Engel — most often seen reporting from war-torn Iraq but more than willing to go wherever bombs, mortars and Katyusha missiles are flying — has been promoted to NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent, continuing to report for "NBC Nightly News" and "Today" plus MSNBC.

Engel, whom ETP recently praised for his heartfelt and honest report on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war — where he's been basically since the invasion in 2003 — was last month awarded the Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism for his one-hour documentary, MSNBC's "War Zone Diary," compiled from his personal video diary of his time covering the war in Iraq. He's also won a DuPont, an Emmy and a Murrow award for his work. Engel has been NBC News' Senior Middle East Correspondent and Beirut Bureau Chief since May 2006, and joined the network in 2003. He is also fluent in Arabic, Italian and Spanish (and clearly just as good at dodging sniper fire — actual sniper fire, that is).

NBC News chief Steve Capus praised Engel's "reporting, his expertise on the situation in the Middle East, his professionalism and his commitment to telling the story of what is happening there," in a press release issued today. "There aren't enough superlatives to describe the work that Richard has done," said Capus. We're sure Lisa McNeil of Alpharetta, Georgia would agree.

Comments

[bikerdude]

05:02 PM on 04/19/2008

Richard Engel is a great correspondent. I hope that this promotion will not diminish his reporting from the front. Hopefully he will be able to attract and train like talent.

[falcao]

11:59 AM on 04/19/2008

Hurrah! This is great news. RE is first rate. Some good news always welcome.

[raker]

08:10 AM on 04/19/2008

I can tell you what General Electric's next report from Iraq will be, and the next one after that, and the next one after that. Engel will be standing next to a field of dead bodies - this is TV after all - telling us that everything in Iraq is swell. Cut to laughing Iraqi children playing soccer; cut to laughing Iraqi children greeting an American soldier as though he were Santa Claus. He'll tell us about a newly built school, or a hospital. He'll tell us that, the field of dead bodies notwithstanding, the surge is working. Then a report on how it feels to be a reporter in Iraq. Everything serves the narrative that our occupation of Iraq, while not quite perfect yet, is like our presence in Germany or Japan. And they all lived happily ever after.

[evekendall]

11:44 PM on 04/18/2008

Well deserved, Richard. Good work.

[tweeksmom]

01:55 PM on 04/18/2008

Congrats Engel! The honor is much deserved. This guy really puts himself out there....

[ToddD]

01:36 PM on 04/18/2008

One hopes that this will allow NBC to get him out of Iraq before some unspeakable harm comes to him...there have been too many close calls for him and all of our Journalists. Sadly some are much worse than close calls. One more reason that it is way past time for us to leave Iraq.