Martha Raddatz

  • ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent
  • Co-Anchor ABC's This Week

Martha Raddatz was named Senior Foreign Affairs correspondent for ABC News in November 2008, after serving as chief White House correspondent during the last term of President George W. Bush's administration. She has received Peabody and Emmy awards for her coverage of presidential campaigns and the Sept. 11 attacks. In 2006, Ms. Raddatz broke the story on the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. She is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller, The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family.

 


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Martha Raddatz headshot
Past Hosts Include:
  • Geneseo College
  • Jewish United Fund of Chicago
  • Mayor's Commission on the Status of Women
Rave Reviews About Martha Raddatz as a Speaker
The International Women's Day event was a great success! Martha Raddatz thrilled the crowd with her unbiased and forthright knowledge of the status of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Mayor enjoyed her speech very much, and when my boss is happy--I'm happy!

2018 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting Keynote | Harvard IOP [40:05] - Get Sharable Link
Talks & Conversations with Martha Raddatz
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Insight and Analysis of Today’s Political Landscape

Iraq and the Long Ride Home

From her incredible access to U.S. troops during 13 trips to Iraq, Martha Raddatz analyzes the current situation and provides an intimate portrait of theterror, bravery, and fortitude not just of the soldiers who were wounded and killed but also of the wives and children whose lives now are forever ...

From her incredible access to U.S. troops during 13 trips to Iraq, Martha Raddatz analyzes the current situation and provides an intimate portrait of theterror, bravery, and fortitude not just of the soldiers who were wounded and killed but also of the wives and children whose lives now are forever changed.

From the White House to the Mideast

Nobody knows their subject matter more thoroughly than Martha Raddatz, as she demonstrated in the 2012 vice presidential debate, masterfully pressing both candidates to answer specific questions on a variety of issues. Drawing on her accomplished experience as a veteran journalist covering domestic ...

Nobody knows their subject matter more thoroughly than Martha Raddatz, as she demonstrated in the 2012 vice presidential debate, masterfully pressing both candidates to answer specific questions on a variety of issues. Drawing on her accomplished experience as a veteran journalist covering domestic and foreign affairs stories from the White House to the Middle East, Raddatz puts audiences in her seat, sharing her perspective on everything from how she gets the answers she needs from hard-nosed politicians to what its like to cover conflicts in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The Washington Post has called her "a modern day Martha Gellhorn, the kind of journalist that little girls read about in history books and dream of becoming."

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Biography

 

Martha Raddatz is ABC News chief global affairs correspondent and co-anchor of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” She has covered national security, foreign policy and politics for decades – reporting from the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House and conflict zones around the world.

She began covering war during the crisis in Bosnia in the late 1990s, but it is Iraq and Afghanistan where she has spent most of her time overseas. Even during her stint as White House correspondent during President George W. Bush’s administration, she continued to make regular trips into war-torn Iraq.

Raddatz embedded with U.S. forces during dozens of trips abroad, from the sands of Al Anbar province to the mountains of the Hindu Kush. She is the only television reporter allowed to fly in an F-15 fighter jet on combat missions over Afghanistan, spending nearly 10 hours in the air on two separate missions. In 2011 she reported exclusive details on the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. That same year she was one of the few reporters on the last major convoy out of Iraq. She also had an exclusive interview on the USS Kearsarge off the coast of Libya with the Marines who helped rescue two American pilots who had gone down in Libya. In 2012, Raddatz was on a U.S. destroyer as it made its way through the Strait of Hormuz. Raddatz reported exclusively from the USS George H.W. Bush, covering the airstrikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq in 2014, and again in March 2016 from the USS Truman. In 2015, she was granted exclusive access to the anti-ISIS command center at an undisclosed location in the Middle East and anchored “This Week” from an air base from which drone warfare is conducted.

In addition, her reporting trips have taken her to Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, India, Turkey, Libya, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and numerous countries in Africa and Asia.

In October 2012, Raddatz moderated the only Vice Presidential debate between Congressman Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden, which covered both domestic and foreign topics. Post-debate Raddatz received an outpouring of praise for asking pointed questions on a range of issues while asserting control over the conversation. She received the Walter Cronkite Award for excellence in political journalism with a special commendation for debate moderation. During the 2016 election Raddatz co-moderated the Democratic and Republican primary presidential debates on ABC as well a presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, for which she once again received praise for her moderating skills.

From 1993-1998, Raddatz was the Pentagon correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR). Prior to joining NPR in 1993, she was the chief correspondent at the ABC News Boston affiliate WCVB-TV. In addition to covering several Presidential campaigns, she reported from the former Soviet Union, Africa, the Middle East, the Philippines and Europe.

In 2012, Raddatz received the First Amendment Award from the Radio Television Digital News Foundation (RTDNF) for excellence in journalism, as well as the prestigious Fred Friendly First Amendment Award. She received four Emmy Awards, including an Emmy for being on the team covering the inauguration of Barack Obama, the attacks of September 11th and the killing of Osama Bin Laden. She was also the recipient of the 2007 International Urbino Press Award, the 2005 Daniel Pearl Award from the Chicago Journalists Association, and a 1996 Overseas Press Club Award for her live coverage of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. In 2007 the White House Correspondents’ Association awarded her the Merriman Smith Memorial Award for excellence in Presidential news coverage under deadline pressure.

Raddatz is the author of The Long Road Home—a Story of War and Family, a highly acclaimed book about a battle in Iraq that made both The New York Times and The Washington Post bestseller lists. The Washington Post described the book as “a masterpiece of literary non-fiction that rivals any war-related classic that has preceded it.”

Raddatz is the mother of a daughter and a son. She is also on the board of the Bob Woodruff Foundation that supports wounded veterans and their families.