Wolf Blitzer Profile
Wolf Blitzer (real name Wolf Isaac Blitzer) is an American Emmy Award-winning News Anchor, Reporter, and Author working for CNN in Atlanta, Georgia as an anchor of The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer airing on weekdays at 6 p.m./ET. He provides in-depth reports about breaking, international, and political news stories. He joined the network in May 1990.
Wolf Blitzer Wiki
Full Name: Wolf Isaac Blitzer
Profession: News Anchor, Reporter, and Author
Nationality: American
Education: Kenmore West Senior High School, The State University of New York at Buffalo, and Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: March 22, 1948
Age / How Old is Wolf Blitzer?: 76 years old as of 2024
Place of Birth: Augsburg, Allied-occupied Germany
Country: United States Of America
Height / How tall is Wolf Blitzer?: 5 feet and 10 inches (1.78 m)
Parents: David Blitzer (father) and Cesia Blitzer (mother)
Wife: Lynn Greenfield
Children: Ilana Blitzer Gendelman
Salary: $1 Million – $5 Million
Net Worth: $15 Million – $20 Million
Wolf Blitzer Education
Blitzer graduated from Kenmore West Senior High School and then attended the State University of New York at Buffalo. He graduated from the university in the year 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts in history. During his stint at the university, he was part of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Sorority. He then enrolled at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. In the year 1972, he earned a Master of Arts in International Relations from the university. During his stint at Johns Hopkins, he studied abroad at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he learned Hebrew.
Moreover, Blitzer holds multiple honorary degrees from educational institutions such as the State University of New York at Buffalo and The Pennsylvania State University in State College. In Washington, D.C., he earned degrees from George Washington University, Catholic University, and Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Wolf Blitzer Career / Wolf Blitzer Political Affiliation
Blitzer serves at CNN as an anchor of the program, “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” The program airs from Monday to Friday at 6 PM. He provides in-depth reports about breaking, international, and political news stories. He served as a moderator of CNN’s January debate in Iowa and several Democratic presidential town halls during the 2020 election cycle.
Also, he served as an anchor of special coverage of Election Night in America that surrounded the 2020 election. Blitzer has also played a critical role in CNN’s expanded coverage of COVID-19, where he worked as a regular anchor, seven days a week during the pandemic’s peak in the year 2020.
Blitzer started his journalism career in the year 1972 in Tel Aviv, where he worked with the Reuters News Agency. It was not long before he began working as a correspondent based in Washington D.C. for The Jerusalem Post. He covered Washington DC for over one and a half decades. Blitzer began at CNN as a military affairs correspondent at the Pentagon.
Blitzer began working as the network’s senior White House correspondent, where he covered President Bill Clinton from the election of November 1992 till the year 1999. He then started a new role as a news anchor, where he co-anchored “Late Edition,” the network’s Sunday public affairs program along with Wolf Blitzer. He held that position for 10 years.
Over the years with CNN International, he covered numerous significant breaking stories across the globe that have shaped the international political landscape. During the withdrawal of Syrian forces and PLO in the year 1982, he was in Beirut.
Politics
Blitzer moderated the CNN Republican Presidential Primary Debates in the year 2016 in Houston, Texas, and in Las Vegas, Nevada. Also, Blitzer moderated the Democratic Presidential Primary Debate in Brooklyn, New York. Throughout America’s Choice in the year 2012, he was pivotal to the network’s election coverage, where he worked as a lead anchor on the nights of; the Emmy award-winning election, key primary, and caucus.
Blitzer has worked as a moderator of 3 of the network’s Republican presidential debates such as the first-of-its-kind tea party debate. He led CNN’s Peabody Award-winning coverage of the presidential primary campaigns and debates during the presidential election of the year 2008.
Blitzer also spearheaded the network’s “America Votes 2004” and Emmy-winning “America Votes 2006” coverage. Additionally, Blitzer was responsible for the anchorage of CNN’s coverage of the inaugurations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Reports Around The World
Other than majoring in politics, he also majors in in-depth reporting on international news. He went to Cairo, Egypt in January 2013, where he sat down with Mohamed Morsy (President) at the presidential palace.
Blitzer traveled to North Korea with Bill Richardson (former New Mexico Governor) in December 2010, where Blitzer was the only network reporter. In North Korea, he took viewers inside the communist, totalitarian regime with coverage from the rarely seen streets of Kim II-sung University in Pyongyang.
In the summer of 2006, in the middle of the Hezbollah-Israel war, Blitzer provided live coverage from Israel. Additionally, he was the only news anchor in America to report on the story of the Dubai Ports World live on the ground in the United Arab Emirates in the year 2005. Also, in the same year, he went to the Middle East to cover the 2nd anniversary of the Iraq war. Back in 2003, he covered the war in Iraq live from the region of the Persian Gulf.
In the year 1977, he reported on the first Israeli-Egyptian peace conference in Egypt, then after 2 years, he went on visits to Israel and Egypt with then-President Jimmy Carter for the last round of negotiations that resulted in the signing of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.
Blitzer was one of the 1st Western reporters who were invited to KGB headquarters. In December 1991, he moved to Moscow to report on the transition from Mikhail Gorbachev to Boris Yeltsin as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Interviewers
Throughout Blitzer’s journalism career, he has conducted interviews with several most notable figures in history such as United States Presidents; Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, George H.W. Bush, and others. Also, he has conducted interviews with multiple foreign leaders like Margaret Thatcher (former British Prime Minister), and Mikhail Gorbachev (former Soviet President), just to name a few.
Wolf Blitzer Awards and Honors
Blitzer holds several awards and honors for his work as a reporter. In 2019, he received the American News Women’s Club Excellence in Journalism Award. For Excellence in Broadcast Journalism, the National Press Foundation honored Blitzer with a Sol Taishoff Award in March 2014.
The Italian Embassy honored him as the 8th recipient of the Urbino Press Award in the year 2013 for his excellence in journalism. The Radio & Television Digital News Foundation awarded him the distinguished Leonard Zeidenberg First Amendment Award in the year 2011. Also, in the same year, he was awarded the Jefferson-Lincoln Award for Public Policy by The Panetta Institute.
He was among the CNN team to win a 2012 Emmy award for covering the revolution in Egypt. The coverage led up to and included the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. He played an important and big role in CNN’s efforts to win the 2006 Emmy Award for live coverage on Election Day. Blitzer holds the 2004 Journalist Pillar of Justice Award, which he received from the Respect for Law Alliance. The Chicago Press Veterans Association has awarded him the 2003 Daniel Pearl Award.
Blitzer was one of the teams that were awarded a George Foster Peabody award for reporting on Hurricane Katrina, an Edward R. Murrow Award for CNN’s coverage of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and an Alfred I. DuPont Award for reporting on Southeast Asia’s tsunami disaster.
For Blitzer’s 1996 coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing, The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded him an Emmy Award. For covering the Persian Gulf War, he and CNN’s team were awarded a Golden CableACE by the National Academy of Cable Programming.
Wolf Blitzer Personal Life, Family, Parents, and Wife
Blitzer is 76 years old as of 2024. He was born on March 22, 1948, in Augsburg, Allied-occupied Germany. He celebrates his birthday on the 22nd of March every year. Blitzer stands at an approximate height of 5 feet and 10 inches (1.78 m).
Blitzer was born to his loving parents, David Blitzer (father) and Cesia Blitzer (mother). His mom is a homemaker and his dad is a home builder. Blitzer was raised in Buffalo, New York, and was born during post-World War II Allied occupation. Blitzer’s parents were Polish Jewish refugees from German-occupied Poland. Blitzer has a sister, Helena Blitzer. His family immigrated to the U.S. under the provisions of the 1948 Displaced Persons Act.
Blitzer is married to his lovely spouse, Lynn Greenfield. Lynn works at the Saks Fifth Avenue store in Chevy Chase as a personal shopper. Blitzer and Lynn tied the knot in the year 1973. They reside in Bethesda, Maryland. When Blitzer is not at work, he likes to explore the world with his wife. Also, they travel together when Blitzer has job duties in other countries.
Blitzer and his wife, Lynn, take great pride in being mom and dad to their one daughter, Ilana Blitzer Gendelman. Ilana is 41 years old as of 2022, having been born in the year 1981.
Wolf Blitzer Salary and Net Worth
Being one of the top journalists for CNN Blitzer earns an annual salary ranging from $1 Million – $5 Million. Blitzer has an estimated net worth of between $15 Million – $20 Million which he has earned through his successful career as a News Anchor/Reporter.
Wolf Blitzer Books, Author
Other than being a journalist, Blitzer is also an author. He has authored 2 books;
- Territory of Lies (Harper and Row, 1989)-cited by The New York Times Book Review as one of the most notable books of the year 1989
- Between Washington and Jerusalem: A Reporter’s Notebook (Oxford University Press, 1985)
Wolf Blitzer Jewish
Yes, Blitzer is Jewish. He hails from a family of Polish Jewish refugees from German-occupied Poland.