Sara Ganim is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former CNN investigative correspondent who regularly publishes in print and broadcast. A multi-platform reporter, Ganim has reported and written for newspapers, cable television, podcasts and documentaries and has won several of the industry’s top awards.
At age 24, she won a Pulitzer Prize for the Harrisburg Patriot-News for breaking and covering the investigation into former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of young boys.
Ganim then spent seven years as a national correspondent at CNN, covering multiple beats, including federal government agencies, the rise of the anti-fascist movement in the U.S., the NCAA, and contaminated American drinking water. In 2015, she won a Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her investigative report exposing the low reading levels of some college athletes.
For the last several years, Ganim has worked in audio narratives. Most recently, she reported and hosted Believable: The Coco Berthmann Story, a Dear Media original investigation about a woman from Germany who moved to Utah and became an internet scam artist. Believable was named one of the top 25 podcasts of 2023 by The Atlantic. In 2021, she made a podcast with Advance Local and Meadowlark Media called The Mayor of Maple Avenue, about the intersection of trauma and addiction and societal failures in the wake of the #meToo movement. The podcast won first place for podcast in Pennsylvania's Keystone Awards. She is also the host of Why Don’t We Know, a podcast which explores government secrecy. It won the Education Writers Association public service award in 2020.
At CNN, Ganim reported for several documentaries, including Dirty Water, which investigated drinking water in rural America; Emmy-nominated Deadly Haze; and two parts on Antifa in America.
In 2020, she made her first independent film, No Defense, which garnered film festival recognition.
She has consulted for several other films, including the Emmy-nominated HBO film Paterno.
Ganim teaches college-level journalism, delivered the 2015 commencement address at American University in Dubai, and was recognized in 2012 by the Associated Press Managing Editors Association for her work with student journalists across the country.
She is also a member of the board of trustees at Lebanese American University.
Ganim is a prior recipient of Hearst, Loyola Law school and Columbia Spencer Education fellowships. Other recognitions include the 2012 National Sexual Violence Resource Center Visionary Voice Award, the 2011 George Polk award, the 2011 Scripps-Howard award, 2012 American Society of News Editors for distinguished writing, 2011 Sidney Hillman’s Sidney Award, a 2010 Golden Quill and the 2010 Bar Association journalism award, 2008 Gannet Media Foundation multimedia award.
She is currently the journalist-in-residence at the University of Florida and the James Madison visiting professor for First Amendment Issues at Columbia University.
She is a 2008 graduate of Penn State University.
