Wolf Blitzer, Distinguished Journalist, CNN Anchor, and Member of the Class of 1972, to Deliver Johns Hopkins SAIS Commencement Address on May 20
Wolf Blitzer, distinguished journalist, CNN anchor, and member of the Class of 1972, will deliver the commencement address during the 2026 graduation ceremony for the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C., on May 20, 2026.
After graduating from SAIS in 1972, Blitzer began his career with the Reuters News Agency in Tel Aviv. He later became a Washington, D.C. correspondent for The Jerusalem Post and reported from the nation’s capital for more than 15 years. Blitzer joined CNN in 1990 as the network’s military-affairs correspondent at the Pentagon. He then served as CNN’s senior White House correspondent covering President Bill Clinton from the November 1992 election until 1999, when he became the anchor of CNN’s Sunday public affairs program Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer and remained for more than a decade. For the past 20 years, Blitzer has hosted The Situation Room, one of CNN’s longest-running programs.
Throughout his career, Blitzer has interviewed some of history’s most notable figures, including U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Blitzer has also interviewed numerous foreign leaders, including the Dalai Lama, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, former Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former South African President Nelson Mandela, among many others.
Blitzer has reported across the United States and from countless countries, chronicling some of the world’s most significant events. He sat down exclusively with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Vilnius, Lithuania during the 2023 NATO Summit and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as Americans continued to feel the effects of post-pandemic inflation. In January 2013, Blitzer traveled to Cairo, Egypt to interview President Mohamed Morsi at the Presidential Palace. In December 2010, he was granted rare access to travel to North Korea with former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Blitzer reported from Israel during the war between that country and Hezbollah during the summer of 2006 and returned to the region with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper in 2012. In 2005, he was the only American news anchor to cover the Dubai Ports World story on the ground in the United Arab Emirates. Blitzer reported on the Iraq war from the Persian Gulf region in 2003 and returned in 2005 to cover its second anniversary.
Blitzer was among the first Western reporters invited into KGB headquarters for a rare inside look into the Soviet intelligence apparatus; he returned to Moscow in December 1991 to cover the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transition from Mikhail Gorbachev to Boris Yeltsin. In 1982, Blitzer was in Beirut during the withdrawal of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Syrian forces. Blitzer covered the first Israeli-Egyptian peace conference in Egypt in 1977, and, in 1979, he traveled with then-President Jimmy Carter on visits to Egypt and Israel for the final round of negotiations that resulted in the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty.
Among his many honors, Blitzer is set to be inducted into the National Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame as a member of the class of 2026. This summer, he will receive the Freedom Forum’s Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media. Blitzer was the recipient of the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2025 and the News & Documentary Emmy Awards Lifetime Achievement honor in 2023. He was part of the CNN team to earn a 2012 Emmy award for the network’s coverage of the revolution in Egypt, leading up to and including the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. Blitzer was vital to the network’s efforts to earn the 2006 Emmy award for live coverage on Election Day. He was also among the teams awarded a George Foster Peabody award for Hurricane Katrina coverage; an Alfred I. DuPont Award for coverage of the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia; and an Edward R. Murrow Award for CNN’s coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Blitzer is the recipient of an Emmy Award from The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his 1996 coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Blitzer has authored two books, Between Washington and Jerusalem: A Reporter’s Notebook (Oxford University Press, 1985) and Territory of Lies (Harper & Row, 1989), both cited by The New York Times Book Review as one of the most notable books of the year.
Before earning a Master of Arts in international relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS, Blitzer earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees from educational institutions across the country, including The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.; State University of New York at Buffalo; The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.; Howard University in Washington, D.C.; The Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA; The University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH; Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA; St. Bonaventure University in New York; Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA; Utah Valley University in Orem, UT; Canisius College in Buffalo, NY; Western New England University in Springfield, MA; University of Hartford in West Hartford, CT; Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY; Gannon University in Erie, PA and Niagara University in New York.
Blitzer will deliver the commencement address at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., to an audience of more than 2,700 members of the Johns Hopkins SAIS community, including graduates, faculty, staff, family, and friends. During the ceremony, the school will confer degrees on more than 600 graduates in the Master of Arts in International Relations, Master of Arts in Global Policy, Master of Arts in Global Risk, Master of Arts in Strategy, Cybersecurity, and Intelligence, Master of Arts in Sustainable Energy, Master’s in International Economics and Finance, Master of International Public Policy, Doctor of International Affairs, and Doctor of Philosophy programs.
This year, SAIS Europe’s commencement will take place in Bologna, Italy on May 16. The Hopkins-Nanjing Center’s commencement will be held in Nanjing, China on June 19.
Media Contact
Asma Yousef(771) 200-6659
ayousef4@jhu.edu
About Johns Hopkins SAIS
For more than eight decades, students have come to the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) to learn from renowned faculty and distinguished policy practitioners, build their professional networks, and gain hands-on work experience.The school was founded in 1943 by Paul H. Nitze and Christian A. Herter, statesmen who sought to prepare the next generation of leaders to meet the complex challenges the U.S. and the world would face following World War II. A distinguished faculty of scholars and policy experts developed an innovative curriculum that emphasized international politics, economics, and foreign languages. That program, combined with skills training and experiential learning, helped prepare students to make a difference in government, civil society, and the private sector. In 1955, SAIS established a campus in Bologna, Italy, and in 1986 the school initiated one of the first Western university programs in the People’s Republic of China in Nanjing.
Today, SAIS carries on this tradition, preparing students for the emerging challenges of the 21st century. Johns Hopkins SAIS’ living alumni number more than 24,000 graduates, a network of professionals working across the globe. From private-sector executives to entrepreneurs, leaders of nongovernmental organizations to ambassadors, and international media correspondents to energy consultants, SAIS alumni are defined by their innovative thinking, analytical approach, and policy expertise. They are leaders in their fields, lifelong students committed to the betterment of the world.
For more information, visit sais.jhu.edu or on X @SAISHopkins
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Date:
Friday, April 17, 2026