Canadian journalist Elizabeth Palmer retired from CBS News this week, concluding a more than 45-year career in journalism as an award-winning foreign correspondent.
Born in Britain, but raised in Canada, Palmer’s early career included working for The Haney Gazette in Haney, B.C. She eventually joined the CBC in 1988, starting with the public broadcaster as a business correspondent for Venture, and science reporter, before going on to serve as a documentary reporter for The Journal. She was named Latin American bureau chief, based in Mexico City in 1994. In 1997, she was appointed bureau chief in Moscow, reporting in both English and French.
She moved into the same position at CBS in 2000, before relocating to London in 2003, frequently reporting from the Middle East for CBS Evening News. She was notably, one of the first network correspondents to get into Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks and remains one of the few Western journalists to have visited Iranian nuclear sites. Palmer was named Asia correspondent in 2021.
In addition to her work for CBS, Palmer has contributed to the Columbia Journalism Review, The Globe and Mail, PBS and National Public Radio (NPR).
Her retirement was first announced on CBS News Sunday Morning, with host Jane Pauley paying tribute to Palmer, dubbing her “central casting for a foreign correspondent…central casting for the best in the business.”
Palmer received the 1994 Science Writers of Canada Award for Best Television Documentary, the 1995 New York Television and Radio Award for Best News Feature, and the 2005 Sigma Delta Chi Award for her coverage of the Beslan school hostage crisis in Russia.
In 2018, Palmer was honoured with the Alfred I duPont-Columbia University Award for her reporting on the siege of Aleppo in Syria. In 2019, the Newseum presented her with a Free Expression award recognizing her body of work. Palmer has also captured several Emmys for both news and feature stories.
