Shihab Rattansi

 

Shibab Rattansi is a television broadcaster, currently working for Al Jazeera English.

 

Career

Al Jazeera English

In the fall of 2013, Rattansi returned to the Washington DC bureau, after a stint in the studios in Doha. In America, Rattansi has returned to field journalism and is filing reports from around the United States. Previously, he was an anchor on the flagship programme Newshour, presenting the show from the station's main bureau, at Doha in Qatar. There, he also hosted studio-based discussion-programmes. Before that, he performed the same role from Washington DC, presenting news and conducting interviews relating primarily to the Americas, until the news broadcasts from Washington ended. He was also a presenter on the programme Inside Story Americas.

CNN

Before joining Al Jazeera English Shihab was a CNN International anchor based in Atlanta, Georgia. At CNN he anchored World News and regularly anchored other shows such as Insight, Your World Today, Global Challenges, CNN Today, and World News Asia. While working for CNN, Rattansi presented the breaking news stories involving the capture of Saddam Hussein, the 2004 Tsunami, Beslan school hostage crisis, 7 July 2005 London bombings, the rape of Muktar Mai in Pakistan with international coverage, and the death of Pope John Paul II and the trial of Saddam Hussein.

NewsAsia

Rattansi formerly worked for Channel NewsAsia in Singapore. While there, he covered Indonesia's turmoil involving the fall of political leader Suharto.

Film-work

He was involved in the Hollywood film entitled The Death of Salvador Dali.

Awards

Rattansi is a Winner of 2006 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award.

Personal Life

Rattansi was educated at University College London. His degree is in art history. He was born and raised in the United Kingdom, but his parents are from Kenya and his grandparents were from India. His grandparents founded the Rattansi Educational Trust, to assist higher educational opportunities in Kenya. His father is emeritus Professor of History and the Philosophy of Science, at University College London. His brother is the novelist and Sony award-winning journalist Afshin Rattansi. Afshin has worked for CNN; Al Jazeera Arabic's "Top Secret" strand; the BBC's Today program; and Bloomberg. He launched the developing world's first financial news channel from the Middle East and also worked for Iran's state-run news network, Press TV from Tehran, before founding his own independent production company. This company produces Afshin's weekly show "Double Standards" and, previously, "Rattansi & Ridley".