BUFFALO, NY – Wolf Blitzer will address the Canisius University undergraduate Class of 2014 on Saturday, May 17 at 10:00 a.m. in the Koessler Athletic Center, located at the corner of Main Street and Delavan Avenue.
A native of Kenmore, NY, Blitzer is CNN’s lead political anchor and the anchor of “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” He has been with the network for 23 years.
Blitzer joined CNN in 1990 as the network’s military-affairs correspondent at the Pentagon. He went on to serve as CNN’s senior White House correspondent, during which time he covered President Bill Clinton from his election in November 1992 until 1999. At that time, Blitzer became anchor of CNN’s Sunday public affairs program “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.”
Since then, Blitzer has played pivotal roles for the network’s political and election coverage. He led CNN’s Emmy-winning “America Votes 2004” and “America Votes 2006” broadcasts. During the 2008 presidential election, Blitzer spearheaded CNN’s Peabody Award-winning coverage of the presidential primary debates and campaigns. He moderated three of CNN’s Republican presidential debates and served as lead anchor for the network’s 2012 election coverage
Throughout his broadcasting career, which began in 1972, Blitzer has reported on some of history’s most notable national and international political figures. He has interviewed every sitting U.S. president since Gerald Ford. Blitzer has also interviewed such foreign leaders as Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, South African President Nelson Mandela and the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
In addition to politics, Blitzer is known for his in-depth reporting on international news. Most recently, he traveled to Cairo, Egypt to interview the country’s first democratically elected leader, President Mohamed Morsy. In December 2010, Blitzer was granted rare access to travel to
North Korea with former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. As the only network journalist, he took viewers inside the communist, totalitarian regime with reports from the rarely seen streets of Pyongyang and Kim II-sung University.
Known for his Middle East expertise, Blitzer reported from Israel in the midst of the war between that country and Hezbollah, in 2006. He was the only American news anchor to cover the Dubai Ports World story on the ground in the United Arab Emirates. He also traveled to the Middle East in 2005 to report on the second anniversary of the war in Iraq. In 2003, Blitzer reported on the Iraq war from the Persian Gulf region. For his efforts in the region, the National Academy of Cable Programming presented Blitzer with its Golden CableACE Award.
Blitzer is also the recipient of several other awards and recognitions. He was among a CNN team awarded a George Foster Peabody Award for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina; an Alfred I. DuPont Award for coverage of the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia; and an Edward R. Murrow Award for CNN’s coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
He is the author of two books, Between Washington and Jerusalem: A Reporter’s Notebook, published in 1985, and Territory of Lies, which was cited by The New York Times book review as “one of the most notable books of 1989.”
Blitzer holds a BA in history from the State University of New York at Buffalo and an MA in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.
Canisius will confer an honorary doctorate degree upon Wolf Blitzer during undergraduate commencement ceremonies. Rev. Edward J. Durkin, SJ, will also receive an honorary doctorate degree during commencement ceremonies. Father Durkin is director of the St. Augustine and St. Monica Scholars Programs of the Nativity/Miguel Middle School in Buffalo.
For more information about undergraduate commencement ceremonies, contact the Office of Public Relations at 716-888-2790.
Canisius is one of 28 Jesuit universities in the nation and the premier private university in Western New York.
