March 2019

Ian Lee is a CBS News correspondent based in London, where he reports for CBS News, CBS Newspath and CBSN. Lee, who joined CBS News in March 2019, is a multi-award-winning journalist, whose work covering major international stories has earned him some of journalism’s top honors, including an Emmy, Peabody and the Investigative Reporters and Editors’ Tom Renner Award.

Lee has reported extensively across the Middle East, Europe and East Asia. Prior to CBS, he was a correspondent for CNN based in Jerusalem. Lee joined CNN in 2011 while living in Egypt, where he covered the country’s uprising and subsequent 2013 coup. He also reported on the civil wars in Syria and Libya, covering both sides of those conflicts. In 2011 he was injured as rebels battled for control of Sirte, the last stronghold of Libyan leader Muammar Al Gaddafi, when an RPG exploded next to him killing a nearby paramedic.

In 2014 Lee covered the seven-week war in Gaza. He was the first foreign journalist to enter Turkey following the 2016 failed coup attempt. His work has also taken him to cover the tensions on the Korean peninsula and terror attacks in London. In 2017 Lee relocated to Jerusalem for CNN to cover news in Israel and Palestinian territories. His work there included exclusive reports with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Palestinian Security Forces, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). He was the first journalist to receive accesses from the IDF to cross bordering Hezbollah tunnels, entering Israel from Lebanon. He was also given rare access by PIJ to tunnels and weapons used to attack Israel.

Before joining CNN, he worked for a local Egyptian newspaper, The Daily News Egypt, as a multimedia reporter and covered the events leading up to the Arab Spring. During that time, he was also a freelance video journalist for Time magazine, and he also spent a year as a producer for Reuters. In 2008 he received a Fulbright Scholarship to Egypt where he researched local media and studied Arabic.

Lee is a 2007 graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. He is also a proud Eagle Scout and Wyomingite.