Jeffrey Kofman
Correspondent, ABC News
 — -- Jeffrey Kofman is a London-based correspondent for ABC News. He reports from around the globe on stories in the U.K. and Europe as well as the Middle East and Africa for ABC News broadcasts including "World News with Diane Sawyer," "Nightline" and "Good Morning America." Prior to his assignment overseas, Kofman spent 10 years based in Miami for ABC News as correspondent for Florida, the Caribbean and Latin America.
Since his move to London in January 2010, Kofman has covered the Arab revolutions in North Africa from Tunisia and Libya. He has reported from South Africa, Kenya, Norway, Sweden and Italy and the Indian Ocean.
While based in Miami, August 2010, Kofman was the first foreign news correspondent on the scene when 33 trapped miners were found alive in a collapsed mine in Chile's northern desert. He reported the dramatic story from the scene during the seven-week long rescue effort and he was there when the miners were brought to the surface.
Kofman also played a key role in ABC's coverage of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, scoring numerous exclusives for the network, including the first television interview with BP CEO Tony Hayward.
Since joining ABC News in January 2001, Kofman has traveled extensively to report on developing stories and political events in Florida and the southeast and more than 20 countries in the Western Hemisphere. He has traveled through some of the most remote regions of South and Central America. He has also covered every major hurricane of the last decade and reported from New Orleans before, during and after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2006.
During his decade in Miami, Kofman developed a specialty in original reporting from the Americas, including stories on obscure but important cancer research in Ecuador and environmental reports from Patagonia, the Galapagos, the Andes and the Amazon. Kofman rode horses into the mountains of Mexico to look at the wintering grounds of millions of Monarch Butterflies; he lived with researchers on a remote island in Southern Chile as they studied a previously unknown population of blue whales, the largest mammals on earth; he flew with American environmentalist/millionaire Doug Tompkins through Patagonia for a look at the world's largest private park Tompkins has assembled to preserve the wilderness in that region; and he biked down "The World's Most Dangerous Road" which has become Bolivia's biggest tourist attraction.
Kofman spent a month in Haiti in early 2004 when guerillas took control of much of the country. He was the only network television journalist to interview President Jean Bertrand Aristide before the President fled the country. He has traveled throughout Colombia, covering U.S. efforts to wipe out the drug trade in that country. In September 2003 he flew aboard President Alvaro Uribe's government jet as the President made a surprise visit to a small city under guerilla control, and in May 2002 he traveled into the Andes aboard Colombian military helicopters, following the anti-narcotic police as they blew up cocaine production labs deep in the jungle.
Kofman also covered Cuba extensively, reporting on the impact of the long stalemate between the U.S. and that country. He was also among the first group of journalists reporting from the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba when Afghan prisoners of war were first brought there in January 2002.
His work covering instability in developing countries has given him unique insights into the challenges of establishing stable democracies in third world nations.
Kofman did six tours in the Middle East after September 11, 2001: four in Iraq, one as an embedded reporter aboard an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea during the war in Afghanistan, and one in Pakistan during the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl.
While in Iraq, Kofman was embedded with U.S. Marines in the southern part of the country. He traveled to some of the most troubled regions, including Fallujah and Samarra. In July 2003, he reported on the declining morale of U.S. troops in the region as their tours of duty kept getting extended. The story was picked up by outlets around the world when one soldier called on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign.
Kofman's work for ABC News has been recognized with an Edward R. Murrow Award, a DuPont Award, and a special Emmy Award for ABC's coverage of the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Kofman came to ABC News from CBS News, where he was a correspondent in the network's New York Bureau. At CBS he reported for the "CBS Evening News" and "Sunday Morning," covering stories from Moscow, London and across the U.S. Before joining CBS, he was a correspondent at CBC National News in Toronto.
During his 11 years at the CBC, Kofman was host of an award-winning weekly current affairs program, anchor of the CBC's Toronto newscast, a network radio host, and sub-anchor for the CBC's flagship nightly network newscast, "The National." He has won several major Canadian journalism awards, including the National Media Human Rights Award for a ground-breaking 1987 CBC documentary on AIDS discrimination. He began his television career at Global Television News in Toronto in 1982.
Kofman speaks French and Spanish. Born in Toronto, he is a graduate of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, where he studied political science.
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