Award-winning reporter Drew Griffin, who worked as a Senior Investigative Correspondent for CNN, has died. He was 60.
Griffin passed away on Saturday, December 17, after a long battle with cancer, his family told the news network. “Drew’s death is a devastating loss to CNN and our entire profession,” CNN CEO Chris Licht said in a note to staff (via Deadline). “A highly acclaimed investigative journalist, Drew’s work had incredible impact and embodied the mission of this organization in every way.”
Before joining CNN, Griffin was an investigative reporter for CBS 2 News in Los Angeles for 10 years. After joining CNN in 2004, Griffin went on to cover several major news stories and received many accolades for his reporting. He won a business and financial reporting Emmy Award in 2005 for his reports on a fault in Ford Motor Company vehicles that caused them to catch fire.
Griffin would go on to receive three more Emmys, including one in 2006 for the CNN Presents documentary How to Rob a Bank and another in 2007 for “Hidden Spending,” an Anderson Cooper 360° segment about congressional spending. Finally, his fourth Emmy came in 2017, for “Trump University Fraud,” about fraudulent practices behind Donald Trump‘s real estate school.
He also earned a Peabody award in 2015 for his story “Crisis at the VA,” which broke the scandals of hidden wait times and deaths at VA hospitals across the country.
“Fearless and artful at the same time, he knew how to push a story forward to its limits, but also tell it in a way that would make everyone understand,” Michael Bass, CNN’s Executive Vice President of Programming, said in a note to the investigative team (via Deadline).
“How many times has he chased an unwilling interviewee? How many times has he spoken truth to power? How many times has he made a difference on something important … It was an honor to be his colleague and to be witness to his work and the ways it changed the world.”
He is survived by his wife Margot, three children, and two grandchildren.