Tara Kangarlou

Tara Kangarlou is an award-winning broadcast and multimedia journalist. She is the recipient of multiple awards including an Edward.R.Murrow award and an Excellence in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. She received her Master’s Degree in Broadcast Journalism from the Annenberg School of Journalism at USC. Prior to that she finished her Bachelor’s Degree in English and World Literature from UCLA. Tara was born and raised in Iran and moved permanently to California with her family in 2003. While in Los Angeles, she reported and produced for NBC-L.A., NPR, Huffington Post and other local and national news outlets. She has reported and produced breaking news, investigative pieces and magazine-style print and broadcast stories.
In 2012, after a year in making, Tara finished reporting and producing a documentary film titled: “Beyond The Electronic Curtain”, which captures the issue of internet freedom and censorship in Iran.
In 2013, Tara covered the recent Iranian election and broke some developments for CNN; she also covered a range of major domestic news including: the Boston Bombing, Government Shutdown and President Obama's Inauguration. Tara’s primary areas of expertise are the Middle East, Foreign Policy, Women’s issues in developing countries as well as domestic and international human-interest stories.
Tara’s motivation to become a journalist is rooted in her experiences growing up. In 2009, her collection of poetry that was due for publication in Iran was banned from print by the government’s cultural ministry for being regarded incompliant with their printing guidelines. Experiencing the effects of censorship at a young age was one of Tara's inspirations to pursue journalism in order to objectively and openly report and tell stories that shape, influence and impact people's lives all over the world. Tara currently lives in Atlanta where she works with CNN International at the network's world headquarters. She was previously worked at CNN's bureau in Washington-DC.