Ari Shapiro Joins CNN as Contributor

Shapiro to Co-Host New Video Podcast Engagement Party Alongside Audie Cornish 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – April 15, 2026 – Ari Shapiro has joined CNN as a contributor, the network announced today. Shapiro will bring his distinctive voice and signature wit to CNN’s on-air and digital programming, and will co-host a new video podcast titled Engagement Party alongside longtime colleague and friend, CNN Anchor and Analyst Audie Cornish.  

On Engagement Party, Cornish and Shapiro will share the culture and ideas they’re engaging with – and why they’re obsessed. The show will take a savvy look at the moments and trends driving conversations online and beyond. Engagement Party will premiere on Friday, May 22 and will be available on CNN’s streaming service and wherever you get your podcasts.  

Shapiro is an award-winning journalist who spent 25 years at NPR, including a decade as host of the evening news program All Things Considered and the podcast Consider This. Before becoming a host in 2015, he was NPR’s international correspondent based in London. Shapiro took on that role after four years as White House Correspondent during the Obama presidency. He also embedded with the presidential campaign of Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, and served as NPR’s Justice Correspondent for five years during the George W. Bush administration. Shapiro also hosted the reality competition The Mole on Netflix, and his debut memoir The Best Strangers in the World was an instant New York Times bestseller. 

Shapiro has won three national Edward R. Murrow awards; one for a global series that connected the dots between climate change, migration, and far-right political leaders; another for his reporting on the life and death of Breonna Taylor; and the third for his coverage of the Trump Administration’s asylum policies on the US-Mexico border. He was named “Journalist of the Year” in 2023 by NLGJA, the association of LGBTQ+ journalists, and the Columbia Journalism Review honored him with a laurel for his investigation into disability benefits for injured American veterans. At age 25, Shapiro also won the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize for an investigation of methamphetamine use and HIV transmission. Shapiro holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University.   

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