Omar Jimenez is an Emmy Award-winning CNN Anchor and Correspondent based in New York.

Jimenez has anchored across nearly all dayparts on both national and international television, covering major breaking news events like the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, the death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, and a historic US-Russia hostage exchange. In 2024, he also led an hour-long special for CNN’s The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper on Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio caught in the politics of the coming presidential election.

As a New York based correspondent, Jimenez has covered a number of major stories including 2025’s New Orleans terror attack on New Year’s Day, 2024’s Republican Presidential Primary, and 2023’s deadliest mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. He has also reported on several major sports stories including the 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers World Series win and LeBron James breaking the all-time basketball points record.

Jimenez was previously based in CNN’s Chicago bureau, where he started as a correspondent in 2019. Jimenez has helped lead CNN’s coverage on numerous national and international stories including: the murder of George Floyd, the first major COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, the sudden death of Kobe Bryant, and more.

While in Minneapolis covering protests after George Floyd’s death, he and his team were handcuffed and detained live on air by Minnesota State Patrol. His team was held for a little over an hour before they were released and could return back to coverage. Over the ensuing months, he helped lead the network’s coverage in both the trial and conviction of the former officer found responsible for murdering Floyd.

Jimenez started with CNN in 2017 for the network’s affiliate service, CNN Newsource, based in Washington, D.C. While there, he covered breaking news stories for CNN’s more than 900 affiliates nationwide reporting both in the United States and internationally in France and Mexico.

Among his work at Newsource: He reported from the ground in Paris in the aftermath of the Notre Dame Cathedral fire; from Las Vegas just hours after the mass shooting there, the deadliest in modern American history; and from Florida and Texas during the 2017 hurricanes that became part of CNN’s Emmy Award-nominated coverage.

Jimenez won his first National News & Documentary Emmy Award in 2021 for his work covering the death of George Floyd. In 2022, Jimenez was nominated for “Outstanding Emerging Journalist” for his body of work the previous year. Prior to joining CNN, Jimenez worked for WBAL-TV in Baltimore, Maryland where he was a reporter and fill-in anchor. While there, he received an individual Emmy Award nomination for general assignment reporting.

He covered the trials for the officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, was the lead story on the station’s Emmy Award-winning special on opioids, and published pieces on opioid influence in Maryland and the fight against child sex trafficking across the state.

Jimenez began his on-air career as a multimedia journalist for WGEM-TV in Quincy, IL, where he covered a wide variety of stories, including the business behind the local methamphetamine trade at the time.

He graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where he also played on the varsity men’s basketball team.