Elizabeth Vargas is the co-anchor of "20/20" on ABC News.
(Heidi Gutman/ABC News)Elizabeth Vargas is anchor of ABC News' "20/20."
As an award-winning anchor and correspondent, Vargas has traveled the world covering breaking news stories, reporting in-depth investigations and conducting newsmaker interviews. During the historic Iraqi elections in December 2005, she anchored "World News" from Baghdad. She anchored for both "World News" and "20/20" from the U.S. Gulf Coast, covering Hurricane Katrina's devastation.
Her international coverage has also sent her to Beslan, Russia, where she found stories of hope after rebels attacked a school and killed more than 300 people, over half of them children. She also reported from the Middle East for a special on the resurrection of Jesus; and reported from Cambodia on the plight of orphans and questionable international adoption practices there.
Vargas has also anchored ABC News coverage of live, breaking news stories including the deaths of President Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, Jr. She won an Emmy in 2000 for Outstanding Instant Coverage of a News Story for anchoring live coverage of the Elian Gonzalez case.
Vargas was credited by the New York Times in November 2004 as reinvigorating the newsmagazine format with her "intellectually brave" reporting of an examination of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a young man whose murder gained national attention as an anti-gay crime. In July 2003, she hosted "In the Shadow of Laci Peterson," an ABC News special that examined the disappearances of several young women in northern California and why their stories failed to attract significant media attention. In November 2003, she anchored "Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci," an hour investigating many theories raised in the best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code." Her February 2001 exclusive interview with the owners of two dogs that killed a San Francisco woman was so revealing, prosecutors in the case say it was critical to winning convictions against the couple.
In 2002, Vargas was the narrator of the four-part, award-winning ABC News documentary series "ICU," which provided a unique look at life inside one of the nation's elite pediatric cardiology intensive care units. Vargas has anchored and reported several one-hour ABC News "Vanished" specials. Other hour-long specials include "Same-Sex Marriages," "Surrogacy" and "It Takes a Miracle." She has also been involved in ABC's Children First Program, participating in a Children First Safety Special and in ABC's March Against Drugs.
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