James Longman has been a foreign correspondent for ABC news since
2017. Based in London, his work takes him all over the world — to
date, more than 45 countries and counting.

He has covered some of the most important international events of our
time. He was in Moscow when Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine and
spent a month reporting from the Russian capital with the situation
deteriorating by the day. He then spent more than 12 weeks in Ukraine
and was one of the first reporters to see firsthand the horrors in
Bucha.

From the fight against the Islamic State group (IS) on the Syrian
front line, confronting Chechen authorities about abuses against
LGBTQ+ people, terror attacks across Europe and further abroad to
tagging humpback whales in the Antarctic, Longman has one of the most
varied briefs in American network news.

He was the first U.S. network reporter at the Thai cave where the
soccer team went missing and was the first to interview them after
their rescue. In Syria, he was the first to gain a television
interview with American IS bride Huda Mothana. During the coronavirus
crisis, he traveled to more than 15 countries to document the
unfolding pandemic while millions were on lockdown. Longman also
fronted the National Geographic special “Virus Hunters,” in which
he traveled around the world to meet front-line researchers working to
stop the next pandemic. An adventure that took him from bat caves in
Liberia to the pig farms of the American Midwest, “Virus Hunters”
aired in 173 countries in over 40 languages

Prior to joining ABC, Longman worked at the BBC as a Beirut
correspondent and a general news reporter. He covered terrorist
attacks across Europe, mental health issues and adolescent drug use.

Longman started at the age of 24 when, as a young Arabic graduate, he
stationed himself in Syria at the beginning of the war. Embedded with
activist networks as the protest movement developed, Longman wrote for
a number of publications and helped arrange access for news
organizations.

Longman won the David Bloom Award for his work in Chechnya, was
nominated for three News Emmy® Awards for work in Thailand and the
Middle East, and was nominated for the Royal Television Society 2016
Young Talent of the Year Award.

Longman was raised bilingual in French and English and speaks Arabic.
He graduated in Arabic from the School of Oriental and African Studies
in London and has a master’s in comparative politics from the London
School of Economics.
