Bill Hemmer is currently anchor (as of 2004) with Soledad O'Brien on American Morning, CNN's flagship morning news program. Bill started with this program in 2002.
With CNN since 1995, Bill has anchored CNN Tonight, CNN Early Edition as well as CNN Morning News/CNN Live Today.
In 2003, Bill traveled to Kuwait City, Kuwait, to report live the ongoing and escalating tensions with neighbor Iraq. When the war began, Bill stayed on, anchoring American Morning and providing daily updates on Operation Iraqi Freedom to many CNN programs throughout the days.
In the summer of 2002, Bill reported live from Somerset, Pennsylvania, on the mining accident that trapped nine workers for 77 hours when a wall separating their tunnel from an abandoned, flooded mine gave way, sending millions of gallons of water into their work area.
In December 2001, Bill traveled to Kandahar, Afghanistan, to report from the frontlines of Operation Enduring Freedom. Bill has also reported live from Jerusalem on the tension in the Middle East, specifically the West Bank.
Soon after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., Bill began reporting from Ground Zero in New York City, providing constant updates and detailed descriptions of the devastation. He personally interviewed Governor Pataki on-site about the future of New York City.
In May 2001, Bill played an instrumental role in the network's coverage of the Timothy McVeigh execution, reporting from Terre Haute, Indiana, where McVeigh was put to death for his part in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Additionally, Bill also played an integral role in CNN's Election 2000 coverage, conducting interviews with the presidential candidates and reporting live from the floor of the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. Following election night, he reported live from Tallahassee on the ongoing dispute over Florida's votes for president, gaining exclusive interviews with Democratic and Republican leaders, while breaking some of the biggest developments in the protracted saga. He spent 39 days in Florida, the longest of any network anchor, while providing near-round-the-clock reports.
Bill received an Emmy Award for his work on CNN's coverage of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. He also covered Hurricane Floyd from various locations across the Eastern Seaboard and reported from Fort Worth, Texas, on the aftermath of the church shootings. He also spent more than a month covering the crisis in Kosovo, where he reported on the aerial bombing missions from Aviano Air Base in Italy, the refugee crisis from Skopje, Macedonia, and on the latest NATO developments from Brussels.
Bill began his television career anchoring weekend sports for WCPO-TV in Cincinnati. He garnered three local Emmy awards in 1993 for Best Investigative Story, Best Entertainment Programming and Best Host. From 1992-93, Bill spent almost one year traveling solo around the world equipped with a backpack and a camera. During that time, he produced video features for WCPO-TV in Cincinnati and print stories for the Cincinnati Post from four continents and more than 15 countries, including China, Cuba, Egypt, Israel, Russia and Vietnam. In a time before cell phones and the Internet, this was a feat equivalent to the early coverage of the American Civil War by Matthew Brady.
Bill earned a bachelor's degree in communication from Miami University in Ohio, which included spending his junior year in Luxembourg studying European history and politics.
Bill is based in the network's New York bureau.
As of late September 2004, Bill has traveled to Florida and Alabama to cover Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Ivan. He also anchored CNN's morning coverage of the July 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston and the August/September 2004 Republican National Convention in New York.
