Richard Engel

As chief foreign correspondent of NBC News, Richard Engel is widely regarded as one of the most authoritative journalists to cover the Middle East. His on-the-scene reports from Egypt, Libya and Syria have brought his audiences unparalleled coverage of a region in tumult. Engel’s reports appear on all platforms of NBC News, including “NBC Nightly News,” “Today,” “Meet the Press,” “Rock Center With Brian Williams,” “Dateline,” MSNBC and NBCNews.com.

Engel was one of the few correspondents to cover the Iraq War in its entirety. During the Arab spring, he was on the ground, fearlessly broadcasting from Egypt and Libya. As Engel chronicled the civil war in Syria, kidnappers grabbed him and his team. Blindfolded and bound, the group faced psychological torture during five days of captivity. They finally escaped with Syrian rebels during a shoot-out.

Prior to joining NBC, Engel worked as a freelancer for ABC. He also served as the Middle East correspondent for “The World,” a joint production of BBC World Service, Public Radio International (PRI) and Boston-based WGBH Radio from 2001 to 2003. He has written for USA Today, Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Jane’s Defense Weekly, a British publication that ran his in-depth profiles of Egypt, Yemen and al-Qaida.

Engel is the recipient of eight News & Documentary Emmy Awards. He won the Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism, the first ever given to a broadcast journalist, for his report “War Zone Diary,” which detailed his experience of covering the Iraq war. This year, he received the John Chancellor Award from Columbia University. Engel also received an Overseas Press Club Award, a Gracie Award, and an Edward R. Murrow Award in recognition of his coverage of Afghanistan.

Engel is the author of two books, “War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq” (Simon & Schuster, 2008) and “A Fist in the Hornet’s Nest” (Hyperion, 2004). He has lived in the Middle East since graduating from Stanford University in 1996.

Follow him @RichardEngel.