Holly Williams
Williams conducts an interview for CBS News at Al Asad Airbase after a missile attack in 2020.
Born
Tasmania, Australia
EducationAustralian National University, Deakin University, Harvard University
OccupationJournalist
EmployerCBS News
Children2
AwardsEdward R. Murrow Award, Jack R. Howard Award, Polk Award, Free Expression Award

Holly Williams is an Australian foreign correspondent and war correspondent who has worked for CBS since 2012. Prior to that, she worked for BBC News, CNN, and Sky News.

Early life and education

Williams grew up in Tasmania and Victoria, Australia. She attended high school in Victoria.[1] Growing up, she was interested in journalism.[2] Williams became interested in China when she was 12 years old while watching the Tiananmen Square Protests on television. At age 15 she persuaded her parents to let her visit China for three months[2] in an exchange program.[3]

Upon returning home she began studying Chinese in high school.[2] Williams became enamored with learning about and watching Chinese films, including “Farewell My Concubine,” directed by Chen Kaige. Years later as a reporter working in China, she interviewed Kaige.[3]

Williams obtained a bachelor's degree in Chinese language studies and Asian history from the Australian National University.[2] Then she earned a master's degree in international relations from Deakin University. After graduating, Williams became an intern for CNN working in China.[4]

From 2007 to 2008, Williams was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.[5]

Career

After her internship, Williams began doing her own camera work, and covered the 2008 Summer Olympics in China. This led to her being hired for her first job as a correspondent[6] and she spent 12 years in China, becoming fluent in Chinese. She worked for BBC News, CNN,[4] and Sky News.[7]

Williams next worked as a war correspondent in conflict areas in Iraq,[5][8] Yemen,[9] Pakistan, Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria and Libya.[10] She also reported from the conflict area in the Donbass region of Ukraine in the trenches in the line of separation from pro-Russian rebels.[11]

Williams was hired by CBS in October 2012.[7] She then studied Turkish when she was a correspondent in Turkey.[1]

On 21 August 2015, the New York Times included Williams in an article about leading female war correspondents.[10] Elle magazine profiled Williams and several other women in a March 2016 article on female correspondents at CBS.[12]

On 12 March 2017, 60 Minutes broadcast two segments Williams produced centered around a series of interviews she conducted with Mohamedou Slahi.[13][14] Slahi was one of the few individuals held in Guantanamo that American officials explicitly acknowledge torturing. CBS News described the interviews as Slahi's first television interviews since his repatriation. Williams traveled to Mauritania for those interviews.[13]

In 2022 Williams went back to Ukraine and began filing stories on the Russo-Ukrainian crisis. She visited eastern Ukraine to report on the war zone, where she was accompanied by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.[11]

Journalism awards

Williams received the Edward R. Murrow Award and the Jack R. Howard Award for her war coverage of the terrorist organization ISIS. Williams and colleague Andrew Portch received the 2012 Polk Award for coverage of Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese human rights activist.[15] In 2019 she received the Free Expression Award for courageous acts.[16]

Williams also produced stories that won the Royal Television Society Award, the Foreign Press Association Award and the Golden Nymph.[5]

Personal life

Williams is married and lives with her husband and their daughter and son in Istanbul, Turkey.[16]

References

  1. 1 2 Adams, Cydney (18 March 2016). "Getting to know CBS News' Holly Williams". CBS News. Retrieved 31 January 2022. I grew up in Australia. When I was little I lived in Tasmania, and then I went to high school in Victoria on the Australian mainland.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Bob Schieffer, Andrew Schwartz, Center for Strategic and International Studies (August 10, 2016) (CLICK "DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT" ABOVE PODCAST-THEN SEE PAGE 10,PARAGRAPHS ONE AND TWO) “CBS’s Holly Williams reports from the Danger Zone”
  3. 1 2 CBS News: 60 Minutes Overtime (September 18, 2016) (See article below video) "How Holly Williams fell in love with China"
  4. 1 2 Pesta, Abigail (8 October 2012). "A Foot in Two Worlds: Holly Williams on Reporting—and Parenting—in War Zones". Daily Beast. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 "Holly Williams". CBS News. 4 September 2018. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  6. ↑ Bob Schieffer, Andrew Schwartz, Center for Strategic and International Studies (August 10, 2016) (Click "DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT" above podcast-then see p.10,paragraph 5) “CBS’s Holly Williams reports from the Danger Zone”
  7. 1 2 Weprin, Alex (8 October 2012). "CBS News Adds Holly Williams To Correspondent Ranks". Ad Week. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  8. ↑ Freeze, Kellie (16 November 2016). "CBS News Foreign Correspondent Holly Williams Reveals Her Dream Interview Subject". ChannelGuideMag.com. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  9. ↑ Williams, Holly (8 September 2021). "On the frontline with Yemen troops fighting civil war that allows al-Qaeda to thrive". CBS News – via Yahoo! News.
  10. 1 2 Torregrosa, Luisita Lopez (21 August 2015). "The rise of the female TV war correspondent as global celebrity". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 March 2017. Williams, a 38-year-old Australian correspondent who has covered China and East Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria and Libya, says she has not noticed any sexism in the workplace but has been sexually harassed in the field. "There are parts of the world – I don't want to name them– where you're more likely to be sexually harassed and that's true whether you're a tourist or a local or a journalist."
  11. 1 2 Williams, Holly (15 June 2021). "From the trenches of Ukraine, a warning about Putin's intentions". CBS News – via Yahoo! News.
  12. ↑ Khan, Mattie (16 March 2016). "For the women war correspondents at CBS News, the office is a battlefield: There are no glass ceilings in a bunker". Elle. Retrieved 13 March 2017. Returning to the field just weeks after giving birth in 2012, Williams ventured deep into the jungles of Burma to do a story on tribal soldiers. She pumped every few hours to make sure that she'd still be able to breastfeed when she returned home.
  13. 1 2 "Ex-Gitmo detainee on torture: "They broke me"". 60 Minutes. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
  14. ↑ Beavers, Olivia (12 March 2017). "Former Gitmo prisoner details U.S. interrogation tactics to '60 Minutes'". The Hill. Retrieved 11 March 2017. 'That shows the greatness of American people. Not- – my greatness because American people believe in justice. And they decided to give me a forum, to give me a voice,' Slahi told Holly Williams.
  15. ↑ Santora, Marc (18 February 2013). "2 Reports on Chinese Rulers' Wealth Are Among 2012 Polk Award Winners". The New York Times. p. A13. Retrieved 13 March 2017. The correspondent Holly Williams and the cameraman Andrew Portch were recognized for their coverage of the human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who fled China after years of being under house arrest for his work exposing how some Chinese women were forced to have abortions to comply with the country's one-child policy.
  16. 1 2 CBS News (APRIL 4, 2019) "CBS News' foreign correspondents awarded Free Expression Awards"
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