David Begnaud, the CBS News reporter whose coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico raised his public profile, will become a correspondent based in New York for CBS News.
“While calling New York home, David will continue to cover the world with the same intensity and dedication he has delivered since joining the network in 2015,” said Kim Godwin, vice president of news for CBS News in a memo to staffers Wednesday. Begnaud will start in his new role December 3, part of “a new deal, a new assignment and a new place to lay my head,” he said in an interview.
Begnaud was stationed in Puerto Rico for more than 30 days in 2017 covering Hurricane Maria and its devastation, and traveled to many different parts of the island to examine multiple angles. “It was my first experiences on the national level being able to dig every finger and every toe I had into a story and immerse myself and say, ‘I’m your guy on all things Puerto Rico,’” Begnaud said. His reporting earned him the George Polk award for public service.
His move to New York will allow him to make more in-studio appearances for various programs and gain some balance in his personal life, he said, but he expects to continue his national reporting duties and travel to various places where news is breaking. But he’d like to be able to continue doing some of the immersive, multi-platform reporting that gained traction in Puerto Rico. “You can’t do that every day, but when I can, I want to do the same,” he said.
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Before joining CBS News in August of 2015, Begnaud was a Los Angeles-based reporter for “Newsbreaker” at ORA TV, a social-media platform for current events and breaking local and world news. He was also a regular contributor to “Entertainment Tonight.” Before that, he worked at KTLA in Los Angeles from 2010 to 2012 and KOVR in Sacramento from 2007 to 20010. He began his journalism career in his home state of Louisiana at the age of 18 at KLFY-TV as a weekend anchor and reporter while still attending college.
Being in New York will also allow him ‘to do some projects,” he said. His next assignment will take him on his first reporting for the CBS newsmagazine “48 Hours.”