Omar Jimenez

Omar Jimenez was born on November 27, 1993, in Worcester, Massachusetts, and raised in Kennesaw, Georgia. He pursued his higher education at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where he majored in broadcast journalism and was also a member of the men’s varsity basketball team from 2011 to 2013. During his time at Northwestern, Jimenez received various national and regional student awards for reporting, including the National Mark of Excellence Award from the Society of Professional Journalists and a Bronze award from the National College Emmys. His early career included an internship with NBC News in Chicago and nearly four years as a multimedia journalist at WGEM-TV in Quincy, Illinois, covering a diverse range of stories. Following this, he worked as a general assignment reporter and fill-in anchor for WBAL-TV in Baltimore, Maryland, from July 2015 to June 2017, where he earned an individual Emmy Award nomination for his reporting.

Jimenez commenced his tenure with CNN in 2017, initially serving at CNN Newsource in Washington, D.C., where he reported breaking news for over 900 affiliate stations across the nation and internationally in France and Mexico. His notable coverage during this period included reporting from Paris after the Notre Dame Cathedral fire, from Las Vegas following a mass shooting, and from Florida and Texas during the 2017 hurricanes, which contributed to CNN’s Emmy Award-nominated coverage. He transitioned to a correspondent role in CNN’s Chicago bureau in 2019 and later became a New York-based Anchor and Correspondent. His extensive work includes covering the murder of George Floyd, a significant event during which he and his team were detained live on air by the Minnesota State Patrol. He played a central role in CNN’s coverage of the subsequent trial and conviction of the officer involved. He also reported on the first major COVID-19 outbreak in the United States and the sudden death of Kobe Bryant.

As an anchor, Jimenez has covered major breaking news such as the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, the death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, and a historic US-Russia hostage exchange. In 2024, he hosted an hour-long special for CNN’s *The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper* focusing on Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. His reporting as a New York correspondent has spanned events like the 2025 New Orleans terror attack, the 2024 Republican Presidential Primary, and the 2023 mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. He has also covered major sports stories, including the 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers World Series win and LeBron James breaking the all-time basketball points record. Jimenez has reported on numerous presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial races from key swing states, dating back to the 2020 election. He received his first National News & Documentary Emmy Award in 2021 for his coverage of George Floyd’s death and was nominated for “Outstanding Emerging Journalist” in 2022.