Jeff Koinange Emmy Award Winning Journalist

Jeff Koinange was born in Kenya. In 1987, at 21 years of age he quit his job as a flight attendant for Kenyan Airways and arrived at New York's Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, NY, United States between 1987 – 1989. He graduated with an Associate's degree and also received a Bachelor of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from New York University. He started working with Kenya's first independent television channel KTN Kenya Television Network. Koinange has been a television reporter for many years, most recently serving as the Africa correspondent for CNN and CNN International from 2001 to 2007.

Before being recruited in CNN, Jeff Koinange worked for Reuters Television from 1995 to 2001. He was assigned to cover Africa and served as their chief producer from 1999 to 2001. He also worked as a producer at NBC News in 1994. Earlier in his career from 1991 to 1992 Koinange also worked for ABC News. He has been instrumental in formulating and covering several significant stories for CNN in Africa. These include the crisis in Darfur, the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone and the famine in Niger. He has also covered news outside of the African continent, including on the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina crisis as well as the Iraq War.

Jeff Koinange won an Emmy award for his brilliant story on the misery of the people during the famine in Niger. However, most recently, in early 2007, Koinange was reprimanded by the government of Nigeria for his coverage of the Movement for the Emanicipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). Although he has repeatedly denied all charges, the Nigerian government asserts that the report was staged. In his special report, Koinange accompanied masked MEND guerillas to a camp where they were holding many Filipino hostages.

It was on May 29, 2007 that his employing media agency CNN announced that Jeff Koinange was no longer employed by the network. Most surprisingly CNN did not provide any substantial explanation for his unexpected departure. There were allegations of he being fired because of paying for stories and rape charges which also included a sex scandal with an elderly woman. His departure came after a blog in Kenya accused him of being the Kenyan date rape journalist. His friends and colleagues have plegded full support to him in his troubled hours.

Whatever be the allegations against him CNN's Former Africa Correspondent Jeff Koinange, shall always be known as the reporter who risked his life on many occasions to bring the countries of Africa, the reality of Africa, into the living rooms of people worldwide. One can not deny his journalistic brilliance, considering the fact that in 2005 he was part of CNNs Peabody award winning team who covered the devastation wreaked on News Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. He has also reported from Baghdad on the post-war insurgency, reconstruction and the historic 2005 elections in Iraq. Maynardije