Alex Crawford

An unprecedented four times winner of the Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year award, Alex Crawford is Special Correspondent for Sky News. Based in South Africa, Alex reports from across the continent and is deployed to big stories around the world.

Formerly based in Sky’s Dubai and Delhi bureaux, Alex has reported on the events in Africa, South Asia, the Gulf and the Middle East including covering the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and Syria.

Alex was the first reporter to broadcast live from Tripoli's Green Square as rebel forces took over the Libyan capital. Arriving in Tripoli on the back of a truck with a rebel convoy, Alex’s reports were broadcast to the world via a manually operated satellite signal and a camera plugged into a cigarette lighter charger.

Alex and her team were the only journalists to get inside the besieged town of Zawiyah when it was being attacked by pro-Gaddafi forces. It was this report that was credited with largely being responsible for the UN agreement to a no-fly zone over Libya.

More recently, Alex and the Sky News team were awarded a BAFTA for their reporting and analysis of the Ebola crisis in Western Africa. Following this Alex received the prestigious Charles Wheeler Award for her outstanding contribution to broadcast journalism.

In 2014, she covered the Oscar Pistorius murder trial from Pretoria, South Africa where two of her exclusive reports were used in court, first by both the Prosecution and then the Defence.

She has been based in Africa since late 2011 and her work has included covering the international intervention in Mali, becoming the first international journalist into the ancient town of Timbuctu; the hunt for Boko Haram in Nigeria and Cameroon; the spread of Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria and rhino poaching in South Africa.

During her thirty year career as a journalist, Alex has been arrested; detained, abducted, interrogated and faced live bullets, tear-gassing, rubber bullets, IEDs, and mortar shells.

When based in Asia, Alex was responsible for covering stories in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Following her reports on the Mumbai terror attacks from outside the Taj Hotel in November 2008, coming under fire live on air, Sky News was shortlisted for a BAFTA and won the coveted international Golden Nymph award for News Coverage.

Her work has been recognised worldwide including by the Foreign Press Association in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, and she won the FPA award in 2011 for her reporting in Libya.

She has been cited in the Bayeux War Correspondents Awards for her reports from hostile environments every year since 2007 and won two awards in 2011 - Best news coverage and the Judges' award for her coverage of the Arab Spring.

In December 2010 she was named Woman Journalist of the Year by Women in Film and Television for her work in Afghanistan, and the following year became the only woman to win a second accolade from the Women in Film and Television when she was awarded Best Achievement in 2011 for her reporting from Tripoli.

In October 2011 Alex was awarded the James Cameron Memorial Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to journalism.

In June 2014, she won an unprecedented fifth Golden Nymph award, the highest accolade from the Monte Carlo Film Festival for her coverage of the conflict in the Central African Republic. Previous wins included her reporting the year before of the South African Marikana Mines Massacre (2013), the Fall of Tripoli (2012); Battle for Zawiyah (2011) and the Mumbai Terror attacks (2009).

She has three BAFTA nominations - for her Mumbai reporting (2009), Pakistan - the Frontline of Terror (2010) and Libyan Rebel Convoy (2012).

She was part of the Sky News team which won an Emmy for its investigations into the role of the Taliban in Pakistan entitled Pakistan; Terror's Frontline (2010) and the same team went onto get an Emmy nomination for Inside the Taliban (2011) - their exclusive access to the Taliban operating this time in Afghanistan.

The prestigious London Press Club made her Broadcasting Journalist of the Year in 2011 for her coverage of the Arab Spring.

And in June 2012, the University of Arts, London awarded her an honorary doctorate.

She was awarded an OBE in the Queen's 2012 New Year's Honours list for services to journalism.

In 2011, the Royal Television Society judges said they "recognised the extraordinary achievement of not only Alex Crawford but also her team in getting unique access to the frontline in Libya – in particular capturing the first proof that Ghaddafi was attacking his own people. It was brave, vivid conflict reporting of the highest order: compelling viewing on a story of major importance.”

She is married to fellow journalist Richard Edmondson and they have four children.