SCOTT HEIDLER

International Correspondent

Scott's broadcast journalism career began at a time and place that would prove to be historic for the industry. He was hired by CNN's Washington bureau just before the start of the Gulf War in 1991, cutting his teeth working with journalists like Wolf Blitzer and Bernard Shaw who helped change the way Americans get their news.

He's currently a Correspondent for Fox News Channel based out of Islamabad, covering Pakistan and Afghanistan. He covered the November 2007 Pakistani State of Emergency, scoring an exclusive interview with President Musharraf and sat down with Benazir Bhutto just weeks before her assassination. Since then he has also exclusively interviewed Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani, former US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad, embedded with the Pakistani Army in the tribal areas and with the US Army in Afghanistan along the Pakistani border.

His South Asia posting came after nearly three years covering the Middle East where he reported for Fox News Channel and for Fox News Radio. While in the region, Scott covered history including the Israeli pullout from Gaza, the Saddam Hussein trial/execution, the conflict from inside Gaza, Hamas' Palestinian election victory, sectarian violence in Beirut and the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Prior to his posting in the Middle East, he served as Fox News Channel's Kabul Correspondent and Bureau Chief. This after working in Iraq with Fox News Channel for a collective nine months in 2003 to 2005. In Kabul, Scott reported on the lead up to the first free presidential election in Afghanistan and hosted live TV coverage of President Karzai's inauguration. He spent a year and a half in Afghanistan.

Hard live news has been Scott's mainstay for the last several years, but he has also reported on the changing lives of Afghans including feature TV stories on women small business, the first female Olympians, and the Buddha statues in Bamiyan. Out of the Middle East bureau, he did features on the life of a Gaza family under sanctions, life under the Katyusha rocket in northern Israel during the war with Hezbollah, and profiled a neighborhood in Beirut at the heart of sectarian violence. For TV, he did a story on the biggest Elvis fan in the Middle East and an Israeli university professor who developed the computer photography program Beauty Function.

In his years between CNN and his work in Pakistan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Afghanistan with Fox News, he has covered stories in Central America, and Asia for National Geographic Channel and freelance for CNN. He has also used his journalistic talents working/volunteering for humanitarian organizations in Guatemala, Kosovo, Macedonia, Mongolia, and Pakistan.

As the son of an airline employee, Scott's been globetrotting since the age of two and attributes his desire and dedication to journalism, digging into cultures/plights and reporting them to the outside world, to his early global exposure.

Due to his eight childhood moves, Scott is a ferocious self-starter. Most of his recent broadcast journalism experience has been working/leading a small field operation. Thus, his skill set runs outside the expected parameters of a correspondent. He can manage a bureau, produce, shoot, setup Streambox live shots and transmit (FTP) video via Bgan. In fact, when he was freelancing in Pakistan during 2002 he co-founded a coalition of journalists with a former CNN correspondent.

The self-starting aspect of Scott's personality goes beyond the professional arena; he has run three marathons and is an avid still photographer. He has traveled solo to regions of the world in crisis for stories and to volunteer his talents.

Scott is also a published author and writer, contributing to foxnews.com, nationalgeographic.com and has reported for New York Daily News, and The Times of London.

With photographer Katherine Kiviat, his wife, Scott published a book on the plight of Afghan women entitled "Parwana." The book profiles 40 women from all walks of life and how they are affecting change as they become active participants in their country for the first time in decades. Five thousand copies of the book were donated to all girls' high schools in Afghanistan. The project was funded by USAID, the US Embassy in Kabul and Kodak USA. Images and interviews from the book have been on display in Kabul (Foundation for Culture and Civil Society), New York (Redux Pictures Gallery) and London (Lancaster House).

"Parwana" was picked up by US publisher Gibbs-Smith who released an English version of the book Women of Courage: Intimate Stories from Afghanistan in September 2007.

The book was awarded Editor's Choice for best non-fiction in the ForeWard Magazine's 2007 book of the year contest. http://www.forewordmagazine.com/ftw/ftwarchives.aspx?id=20080530.htm#1

It also received a Bronze Medal in the 2008 Independent Publisher Awards, Women's Affairs category.

Scott's US base is New York City. He has basic Spanish skills and graduated from the University of San Diego, receiving a BA in Communication Studies with an English Literature minor. He is a member of the Frontline Club in London and has received hostile environment training by the AKE Group, UK. His overseas postings over 3 months have included -- Jerusalem; Kabul, Afghanistan; Baghdad, Iraq; Skopje, Macedonia; Islamabad, Pakistan; and San Jose, Costa Rica.