Professional Biography

Updated: April 21, 2008

Thumbnail

Ralph Begleiter brings more than 30 years of broadcast journalism experience to the University of Delaware, where he teaches communication, journalism, and political science. During two decades as CNN’s “world affairs correspondent,” Begleiter was the network’s most widely-traveled reporter. He has visited some 95 countries on 6 continents. He continues to travel, with university students to Cuba, South America, Turkey and Antarctica, and conducting media workshops in several countries under the auspices of the U.S. Department of State. At CNN during the 1980’s and 1990’s, he covered U.S. diplomacy, interviewed countless world leaders, hosted a global public affairs program called “Global View,” and co-anchored CNN’s prestigious “International Hour.”  In 1998, Begleiter wrote and anchored a 24-part series on the Cold War.  He covered many historic events at the end of the 20th century, including virtually every high-level Soviet/Russian-American meeting; the Persian Gulf Crisis in 1990-91; the Dayton Bosnia Accords; Middle East Peace efforts; and many UN and NATO summit meetings. In recent years he has hosted the Foreign Policy Association’s annual “Great Decisions” television discussion series, aired on Public Broadcasting System stations. He has received numerous press awards including, in 1994, the Weintal Prize from Georgetown University’s Graduate School of Foreign Service, one of diplomatic reporting’s highest honors.

He holds an Honors B.A. in political science from Brown University, an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, and is a member of the National Honor Society, Phi Beta Kappa.

More…

At Delaware, Begleiter teaches undergraduate courses in “Broadcast News,” “History of TV News Documentary,” “Broadcast News Documentary,” “Global Media & International Politics,” “Introduction to Journalism” and special courses such as a study abroad program in Turkey in geopolitics in 2008, in Antarctica and South America in photojournalism and geopolitics (2003, 2005) and “Road to the Presidency” during election years. He also directs the university’s “Global Agenda” public speaker program, and in 2006, his “Global Agenda” class met weekly by videoconference with students in Beirut, Lebanon to discuss cross-cultural and media issues. In 2002 he took UD students to Cuba for the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Begleiter has hosted the Foreign Policy Association public television series “Great Decisions,” broadcast on many PBS stations from 2001-2004 and again from 2006 - 2008.

In 2004-5, Begleiter successfully used the Freedom of Information Act in the United States to prompt public release of hundreds of photos taken by the U.S. government of fallen American soldiers returning home in flag-draped caskets, one of the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

At the invitation of the U.S. government, Begleiter has taught journalists in Jordan, Syria and Taiwan, and has taught classes for employees of the U.S. National Security Agency. He has also addressed journalists in many other countries and in Washington has helped train U.S. career diplomats studying public affairs issues at the State department’s Foreign Service Institute. Begleiter has also taught on media and foreign policy at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and at Princeton University. He has served as a faculty member and resource specialist at a Salzburg Seminar session on “Mass Media in the Age of Globalization.”

He regularly speaks to civic and community organizations, international affairs groups and military institutions  worldwide, including World Affairs Councils, the National Defense University, the Freedom Forum, Britain’s Royal College of Defense Studies, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, U.S. Air War College, U.S. Naval War College, U.S. Army War College and embassy policy groups.

For almost two decades, Begleiter was CNN’s World Affairs Correspondent based in the network’s Washington Bureau, writing and producing thousands of news reports and programs aired worldwide. He joined CNN in 1981. In 1994, he conceived and began hosting the weekly “Global View” program, a public affairs discussion of international issues seen worldwide on CNN International. He also co-hosted CNN’s “International Hour,” seen worldwide.

Begleiter was CNN’s most widely traveled Correspondent. He has flown almost 2-million miles and visited 95 countries on 6 continents. His CNN travels with U.S. Secretaries of State and Presidents included visits to many areas of the then-Soviet Union, and to all of the now-independent states of the former USSR. Begleiter has also traveled extensively in Asia (including China, Vietnam, Mongolia, Japan and Korea), the Middle East (including Israel and most Arab nations), and Europe, and made less expansive trips to Latin America and Africa.

Among his CNN assignments, Begleiter developed and hosted “Cold War Postscript,” a 24-part weekly program examining connections between the history of the Cold War and global affairs in today’s world. In 1999, Begleiter broadcast “live” from the funeral for Jordan’s King Hussein in Amman, as he did from Jerusalem in 1995 after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In 1997, Begleiter reported “live” from the Hong Kong/China border as Chinese troops arrived for the handover from Britain. In 1996, he hosted coverage of the “Summit of Peacemakers” from Egypt’s Sinai Desert and contributed to CNN’s awarding winning coverage of the Russian Presidential elections.

In August 1990, Begleiter became the first and only Western news correspondent ever to accompany a Soviet Foreign Minister, then Eduard Shevardnadze, interviewing Shevardnadze aboard his aircraft. He covered virtually every high-level Soviet-American meeting between 1983 and 1999.

Before joining CNN, Begleiter reported for WTOP AM-TV in Washington, D.C. He began his broadcast journalism career in 1967 in Providence, Rhode Island, where he worked as a reporter and writer for WICE-AM and WJAR AM-TV, and served as News Director for WBRU-FM.

In 1994, Georgetown University’s Graduate School of Foreign Service awarded Begleiter its Weintal Prize. He was named as a contributor to CNN’s award-winning coverage of major global events, including the Gulf War (1991). Other honors include awards from the National Press Club, the National Academy for Cable Programming, the Houston International Film Festival, the New York Festivals International Competition for Television, Film and Video Communication, the Associated Press and United Press International.