Ralph Begleiter
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Ralph Begleiter is the University of Delaware's "Distinguished Journalist in Residence," teaching Communication, Political Science and Journalism. He joined the faculty in July 1999, bringing more than 30 years of broadcast journalism experience to classrooms for students interested in international affairs and broadcast journalism. He directs the university's annual "Global Agenda" speaker series on international issues.
At Delaware, Begleiter teaches undergraduate courses in "Media and Politics," "Broadcast News," "Crisis News," "History of TV News Documentary," "Broadcast News Documentary," "Global Media & International Politics," and special courses such as a study abroad program in Antarctica in photojournalism and geopolitics (2003, 2005) and "Road to the Presidency" during election years. In 2002 he took UD students to Cuba for the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
He holds an Honors B.A. in political science from Brown University, an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, and is a member of the National Honor Society, Phi Beta Kappa. He has served as a Trustee of Brown University and an adviser to the university's public affairs offices.
Begleiter also is program host on the Foreign Policy Association public television series "Great Decisions," broadcast on many PBS stations from 2001-2004 and again in 2006. He has been a judge of the Computerworld Awards honoring public service uses of computer technology and served (1996-2005) as a Commissioner of the "RIAS Berlin Commission," encouraging German-American broadcast journalism and exchanges.
At the invitation of the U.S. Department of State, Begleiter has taught journalists in Jordan, Syria and Taiwan. He has also addressed journalists in many other countries and in Washington has helped train U.S. career diplomats studying public affairs issues at the State department's Foreign Service Institute.
Begleiter has also taught on media and foreign policy at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and at Princeton University. He has served as a faculty member and resource specialist at a Salzburg Seminar session on "Mass Media in the Age of Globalization." The New York Museum of Radio and Television has used Begleiter in its "satellite seminar" series of educational programs broadcast to colleges and universities throughout the United States.
He regularly speaks to civic and community organizations, international affairs groups worldwide, including World Affairs Councils, the National Defense University, the Freedom Forum, Britain's Royal College of Defense Studies, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, U.S. Air War College, U.S. Naval War College, U.S. Army War College, the James A. Baker Institute and embassy policy groups.
For almost two decades, Begleiter was CNN's World Affairs Correspondent based in the network's Washington Bureau, writing and producing thousands of news reports and programs aired worldwide. He joined CNN in 1981, and took on the State Department assignment in June, 1982. In 1994, after leaving the State Department, he conceived and began hosting the weekly "Global View" program, a public affairs discussion of international issues seen worldwide on CNN International. he also hosted CNN's "International Hour," seen worldwide.
Among his CNN assignments, Begleiter developed and hosted "Cold War Postscript," a 24-part weekly program examining connections between the history of the Cold War and global affairs in today's world. From 1994-1995, he co-anchored CNN's prestigious "International Hour. In 1999, Begleiter broadcast "live" from the funeral for Jordan's King Hussein in Amman, as he did from Jerusalem in 1995 after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In 1997, Begleiter reported "live" from the Hong Kong/China border as Chinese troops arrived for the handover from Britain. In 1996, he hosted coverage of the "Summit of Peacemakers" from Egypt's Sinai Desert and contributed to CNN's awarding winning coverage of the Russian Presidential elections. In 1995, Begleiter anchored CNNI's live worldwide coverage of 50th anniversary World War Two V-E Day events from Moscow, the conclusion of the Bosnia Accords from Dayton and the signing of the Accords from Paris.
Begleiter was CNN's most widely-traveled Correspondent. He has flown almost 2-million miles and visited 92 countries on 6 continents. His CNN travels with U.S. Secretaries of State and Presidents included visits to many areas of the then-Soviet Union, and to all of the now-independent states of the former USSR. Begleiter has also traveled extensively in Asia (including China, Vietnam, Mongolia, Japan and Korea), the Middle East (including Israel and most Arab nations), and Europe, and made less expansive trips to Latin America and Africa.
In 1994, Georgetown University's Graduate School of Foreign Service awarded Begleiter its Weintal Prize, one of diplomatic reporting's highest honors. He was named as a contributor to CNN's award-winning coverage of major global events, including the Gulf War (1991) and the first democratic elections in Russia (1996).
During the Persian Gulf Crisis in 1990 and 1991, Begleiter followed the delicate diplomatic construction of the unprecedented international coalition which eventually went to war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, reporting "live" from Geneva on the dramatic collapse of diplomatic efforts to avoid the war with a final Iraqi-American high-level meeting in January, 1991.
In August, 1990, Begleiter became the first and only Western news correspondent ever to accompany a Soviet Foreign Minister, then Eduard Shevardnadze, aboard Shevardnadze's aircraft on an official diplomatic mission. He covered virtually every high-level Soviet-American meeting between 1983 and 1999.
Throughout 1990, Begleiter covered the unfolding democratic revolution in Eastern Europe and the unification of Germany. He has interviewed many world leaders, among them British Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin, several Russian Foreign Ministers, Chinese President Jiang Zemin and French Presidents Jacques Chirac and Francois Mitterrand. Begleiter has also interviewed history-making world figures such as South African President Nelson Mandela and Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng.
He has also covered the U.S. national political conventions since 1976 and served as an Election Night anchor for CNN and CNN International. In 1981, he covered the U.S. Supreme Court and the trial of presidential assailant John Hinckley in Washington.
Before joining CNN, Begleiter reported for WTOP AM-TV in Washington, D.C. He began his broadcast journalism career in 1967 in Providence, Rhode Island, where he worked as a reporter and writer for WICE-AM and WJAR AM-TV, as well as serving as News Director for WBRU-FM.
Other honors earned by Begleiter include awards from the National Press Club, the National Academy for Cable Programming, the Houston International Film Festival, the New York Festivals International Competition for Television, Film and Video Communication, the Associated Press and United Press International.
Begleiter was born in New York City. He lives in Newark, Delaware with his wife, Barbara. Their son lives and works in Los Angeles.
