AnneClaire Stapleton is an award-winning Senior News Editor and Producer based at CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta. She oversees the International Desk’s daily priorities and manages logistics and field teams in breaking news stories. Stapleton has deployed to many breaking news stories in the US and worldwide.

Stapleton produced from the front lines of the Ukraine-Russia war throughout 2022 and produced an exclusive interview with Ukraine’s Minister of Defense in Brussels. She was one of the first international reporting teams to cover the displaced persons’ crisis at Ukraine’s border with Poland in the days immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine. Stapleton and team gained exclusive access to a top-secret evacuation of terminally ill Ukrainian children by train. Stapleton and team went live from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, as the first humanitarian buses evacuated civilians from Russian-occupied Mariupol.

Stapleton managed breaking news coverage during the 2021 Haitian earthquake and US troop pull out of Afghanistan. She was the first journalist to speak with the family of US citizen Paul Whelan after his arrest in Russia on espionage charges.

Before joining CNN International, Stapleton spent eight years as a News Editor and Producer for CNN Domestic, covering breaking news and US-based stories. Stapleton specialized in reporting in-depth profiles of victims killed and injured in mass terror attacks. Stapleton led the reporting teams dedicated to profiling the victims of the 2015 Paris terror attack, the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting, the Brussels terror attack, and the victims of MH17 shot down over Ukraine, among others.

Stapleton’s reporting has spanned hundreds of breaking news events over the years, including the sexual assault of elite gymnasts at the hands of Larry Nassar, the hospitalization of President Jimmy Carter, nationwide Jewish center bomb threats, US Marines nude photo scandal, Kabul university attack, Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting, unrest in Ferguson after a police officer killed unarmed African-American teen Michael Brown, ISIS’s brutal killing of journalists, the raid on polygamist Warren Jeffs compound, the killing of Trayvon Martin, the Casey Anthony trial, among others.

Stapleton has covered many catastrophic weather events, including Hurricanes, Tropical Storms, deadly tornadoes, blizzards, typhoons, earthquakes, avalanches, and floods.

Stapleton and her colleagues won a 2023 duPont-Columbia Award for CNN’s coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She was also part of the CNN team who won a 2010 Peabody Award for the Gulf Oil Spill and a 2011 Peabody Award for reporting on the Arab Spring.

Stapleton has written about her experience as a journalist and military wife during the Covid-19 pandemic. She is deeply committed to reporting on the trials and tribulations of US military families, working parents, and equality.

Stapleton occasionally writes about lighthearted subjects like the battle for bragging rights for Long Island Ice Tea, a tween accidentally running a marathon, bacon-wrapped pizza, prize-winning pumpkins, and a hitchhiking Dave Matthews.

Stapleton joined CNN in 2008 after earning her BA in Journalism and Writing at the University of Central Florida.