CNN adds two correspondents to affiliate news service

CNN has hired Brian Abel and Leigh Waldman as correspondents for its affiliate news service CNN Newsource.

Abel will be based in Washington, D.C., with Waldman based in New York.

Abel comes to CNN from WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan where he secured multiple one-on-one interviews with the presidential candidates during 2020, and he led breaking news stories, including the plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and the deadly mass shootings at Oxford High School and Michigan State University.

Waldman was an investigative reporter at KSAT San Antonio, Texas. She led the station’s team coverage during the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting, earning an Emmy and Texas Broadcast News Award. She helmed enterprise lead stories for the 10pm newscast, and she also created the #1 podcast for the market called Texas Crime Stories, utilizing multiplatform audio and visual podcasts focusing on true crime in Texas.

In 2020, Abel was honored with an Emmy Award by the Michigan chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for highlighting the consequences and prevention efforts of a drug pipeline in “Connected in Crime: Detroit to West Virginia.”

Previously, Abel reported for Scripps sister station KSHB in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was the lead reporter during the 2016 elections. He also served as a reporter in Fargo, North Dakota for WDAY and served as the primary anchor for WDAZ in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Abel graduated from Western Michigan with a degree in journalism.

Previously, Waldman was the weekend morning anchor for WOWT in Omaha, Nebraska, contributing to the station’s coverage of historic snowstorms, Heartland flooding and the COVID-19 pandemic. She also served as an anchor, reporter and producer for Victoria Television Group in Victoria, Texas.

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Waldman graduated with a bachelor’s in journalism from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.