Roxana Saberi Biography
Roxana Saberi is a CBS News correspondent and former Miss North Dakota pageant winner from the United States. She was imprisoned in Iran’s Evin Prison for 101 days in 2009 on espionage charges. She later wrote a book about her experience.
Roxana Saberi Age
Saberi is 44 years old as of 2021. She was born on 26 April 1977 in Belleville, New Jersey, United States.
Roxana Saberi Family
Saberi was born in Iran, the daughter of Reza Saberi and Akiko Saberi, who emigrated from Japan. Her family relocated to Fargo, North Dakota when she was six months old.
Roxana Saberi Wife
Saberi is in a relationship with Bahman Ghobadi, a filmmaker who serves as an auteur director.
Roxana Saberi Education
Saberi graduated with honors from Fargo North High School in 1994, where she played piano, soccer, and was a member of the Key Club and the dance line. In 2007, Saberi was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame. She earned degrees in Communication and French from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, in 1997. Saberi also played soccer for the Cobbers from 1994 to 1996.
She was chosen as Miss North Dakota in 1997 and was one of the top ten finalists in Miss America 1998, where she won the Scholar Award. Saberi has a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Northwestern University and another master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge, where she played soccer for the university team and the King’s College, Cambridge, soccer team. At the time of her arrest, she was working on another master’s degree in Iranian studies.
Roxana Saberi Salary
Saberi has an estimated net worth of $2 million.
Roxana Saberi Net Worth
Saberi earns an annual salary of $200 thousand.
Roxana Saberi Career
From 2016 to 2018, Saberi worked as a freelance correspondent for CBS News and Newspath, CBS News’ affiliate news service. She filled in as an anchor on CBSN, CBS News’ 24-hour digital streaming news network.
Saberi previously worked as a correspondent for Al Jazeera America, where she reported on breaking news, business, and investigative stories from across the United States and abroad. In Myanmar, she reported on child labor and Muslim-Buddhist tensions. In Japan, she hosted and reported on a special commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, the US military presence in Okinawa, and being biracial in Japanese society. Saberi also established a social justice beat at Al Jazeera America, reporting on gender issues, LGBTQ rights, and racial and ethnic minorities.
Saberi previously spent six years living and reporting in Iran. She spoke Persian fluently and spoke about politics, foreign policy, the nuclear program, the economy, culture, and the changing roles of women in Iran. She opened and ran Feature Story News’ Tehran bureau while there, contributing daily and in-depth news reports to media outlets such as PBS, Fox News, Channel News Asia, NPR, PRI, and Deutsche Welle. She also worked as a freelance correspondent for the BBC in Iran and produced radio reports for ABC.
Saberi was arrested and held for 100 days in Tehran’s Evin Prison in 2009 while writing a book about Iran on a false charge of spying for the CIA. She returned to the United States after an international campaign for her release and wrote the book Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran. She continued to contribute reports about Iran and the Middle East, as well as serve as an Iran commentator for various news outlets. Saberi has also covered Afghanistan after the Taliban’s fall, Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s fall, and the 2006 Lebanon War.
Saberi’s work has earned her the Medill Medal of Courage, the Ilaria Alpi Freedom of the Press Award, and the NCAA Award of Valor. She began her journalism career as a reporter for KVLY-TV, Fargo, North Dakota’s NBC affiliate. She later worked as a reporter for News 24 Houston.
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