Michael Holmes is an anchor and correspondent for CNN International, based at the network's headquarters in Atlanta.
Holmes is also the host of 'BackStory,' the weekday program that goes beyond the daily headlines to give the story behind the story. This unique show looks to capture the passion and emotion that goes into newsgathering and storytelling by presenting the personal accounts of eyewitnesses and CNN correspondents.
Holmes, who joined CNNI in 1996 as the first Australian anchor for the network, has reported extensively from all corners of the globe including Asia, Europe, the Middle East, India, Nepal, Africa, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Holmes has covered the war in Iraq from the very beginning, traveling there on multiple occasions for weeks at a time. He has reported on all aspects of the war from the insurgency and occupation to the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein. In January 2004 he survived an ambush on a two-vehicle CNN convoy which left two CNN staff members dead and one wounded.
In 2007, CNN’s award-winning documentary ‘On Assignment: Month of Mayhem’ revealed a behind-the-scenes look at Holmes reporting in Iraq during what would later become one of the bloodiest months since the war started in 2003.
In April 2002 he was one of the few journalists reporting from Ramallah during the Israeli incursion, and despite Israeli gunfire, secured an exclusive interview with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat inside his besieged headquarters during a highly dangerous period in the West Bank. That was just one of the many exclusives Holmes had from the region, seeing violence on both sides of that conflict.
As an anchor, he has interviewed prime ministers and presidents of several nations, anchored numerous live events and breaking news stories from around the world and served as host and moderator at several CNN special events including Future Summit and Principal Voices.
Before joining CNNI, Holmes worked for Australia's Nine Network, and was one of the few Australian journalists to cover first hand the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
He was based in London for four years as the network's European correspondent for current affairs, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Lockerbie plane crash, Northern Ireland and the start of the first Gulf War. His reports in Bucharest during the miners' uprising in 1990 earned him an Australian Television Society Award for Coverage of a Current Affairs Story.
After working in newspapers for nearly five years, he began his television career in 1982 with the Nine Network in Perth. He also has worked for several British media outlets, including WTN, The Observer newspaper and TV-AM.
He began his career at the age of 17, as a cub reporter with the Daily News, an afternoon newspaper in Perth.
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