Kyra Phillips is an Emmy® award-winning correspondent for ABC News
and an anchor for ABC News Live, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to
joining ABC News, she was a CNN anchor for “Live From,” “CNN
Newsroom” and “American Morning.” She moved to HLN in 2012 to
anchor “Raising America with Kyra Phillips,” a daily interactive
program focused on news impacting the modern American family. She was
also a correspondent for the CNN investigative and documentary units.

Her work has taken her all over the world, covering breaking news
across the Middle East. During her four assignments covering the war
in Iraq, she embedded with troops aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln,
documented substance abuse in the Iraqi military, reported exclusively
from inside Saddam Hussein’s cell, and traveled to Baghdad’s
School for the Blind. Phillips became the first female journalist to
fly in an F-14 air-to-air combat training mission over the Persian
Gulf, and her war coverage earned her the Atlanta Press Club’s
National Reporter of the Year in 2007.

In the U.S., she has covered the White House during President Donald
Trump’s administration, documented the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina and the impact on the people of New Orleans, and reported on
rising racial tensions in Jena, Louisiana, after nooses were hung
outside the town’s high school.

Phillips has devoted much of her career to long-form investigative
reporting. She has investigated sexual misconduct allegations in the
United States’ top military academies, sexual predators employed at
some of the United States’ most famous theme parks, and war
atrocities committed by a former commander in Somalia’s army. Her
latest “IMPACT x Nightline” investigation exposed sexual abuse in
a Christian sect known as the 2×2 Church.

Throughout her career, she has gained exclusive access to some of the
world’s most public figures, from former presidents to Mother
Teresa. Phillips sat down with the Rev. Billy Graham in his last
television interview and embedded with Adm. Thad Allen, National
Incident Commander for the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of
Mexico, gaining unprecedented access to the disaster site.

Phillips participated in specialized aviation instruction with the
Navy’s elite TOPGUN School and has extensive police S.W.A.T.
training.

Prior to CNN, Phillips served as an investigative reporter and anchor
for KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. She was a weekend anchor and reporter for
WDSU-TV in New Orleans, and anchored and reported for WLUK-TV in Green
Bay, Wisconsin. She has also served as a morning anchor and reporter
for KAMC-TV in Lubbock, Texas, and as a field producer for
CNN-Telemundo in Washington, D.C.

Phillips has won Peabody, Emmy, Edward R. Murrow, Society of
Professional Journalists and Gracie awards for investigative
reporting. Most recently, Phillips won a 2026 News Emmy for her
outstanding work anchoring live breaking news. Additionally, she has
won numerous Golden Microphones and is a member of the Council on
Foreign Relations.

She volunteers for a variety of organizations that help those in need.
She is a trustee of The Fisher House Foundation and serves on the
board for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. She received
the Global Down Syndrome Foundation’s Quincy Jones Exceptional
Advocacy Award in 2013 and is now a global ambassador. Phillips is
also the co-author of “The Whole Life Fertility Plan,” published
in 2015, a contributing writer on “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Billy
Graham & Me,” and is a 2017 40 Over 40 honoree.

Phillips earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the
University of Southern California. She is married and the proud parent
of twins.

 
