Manu Raju | |
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| Born | Manu K. Raju (1980-02-09)February 9, 1980 (age 45) Downers Grove, Illinois, U.S. |
| Education | University of Wisconsin-Madison (BBA) |
| Occupation | Journalist atCNN |
| Spouse | Archana Mehta |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | Sharat Raju (brother) Gopalakrishna Adiga (grandfather) |
| Website | Manu Raju onTwitter |
Manu Raju (born February 9, 1980) is an Americanjournalist who serves as the chief congressional correspondent at the news networkCNN, covering theUnited States Congress and campaign politics. He is also anchor of the Sunday edition of CNN'sInside Politics with Manu Raju.[1] Raju previously reported forPolitico as a seniorCapitol Hill correspondent and for other D.C. news outlets as well.
Raju has won multiple journalism awards for his reporting on D.C. and his coverage of campaign politics. Raju moderated debates for the2014 U.S. Senate election in Colorado and the2014 Colorado gubernatorial election. He has regularly interviewed major political figures on national TV, including House SpeakersPaul Ryan andNancy Pelosi, Republican Senate leaderMitch McConnell, former Senate minority leaderHarry Reid, and SenatorsMarco Rubio,John McCain, andLindsey Graham.
Raju grew up inDarien, Illinois, the son of Tonse N. K. Raju and Vidya Raju who immigrated fromKarnataka,India in the 1970s and both later worked at theNational Institutes of Health. His father, Tonse Raju, is aneonatologist and formerly a professor ofpediatrics at theUniversity of Illinois at Chicago. His grandfatherGopalakrishna Adiga was a poet from India who wrote inKannada. Raju attendedHinsdale South High School, graduating in 1998. He attended theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison, graduating in 2002 with a degree inbusiness administration. During college, Raju worked as the sports editor forThe Badger Herald.[2]
Raju first started working on the assignment desk atWMTV inMadison, Wisconsin, before moving to Washington, D.C. in 2002. There, he took a job with Inside Washington Publishers, covering environmental policy. He later worked forCongressional Quarterly,The Hill, andPolitico, where he reported for seven years before joiningCNN in September 2015.[3] Before joining CNN, Raju was a regular guest on many networks and programs, including NBC'sMeet the Press and CBS'Face the Nation. When he was hired by CNN,Erik Wemple ofThe Washington Post called the move a "towering get" for the network.[4]
Raju has developed a reputation for finding out what politicians are discussing behind the scenes,[4] and broke major stories during the 2013 government shutdown and during Senate Minority LeaderMitch McConnell's high-profilereelection race in 2014. Raju broke a story about how McConnell's opponentAlison Lundergan Grimes appeared to be getting an illegal campaign bus from her father, who was later sentenced to prison for campaign finance violations.[5][6]
In 2016 for CNN, Raju was the network's lead correspondent covering SenatorMarco Rubio'spresidential campaign. He extensively covered the GOP establishment's struggle withDonald Trump and broke big news in high-profile Senate races, including in New Hampshire.
In 2017, Raju was featured on the cover ofIndia Abroad newspaper, which dubbed him the "King of the Hill" for his reporting on key decision-makers in the United States and on Capitol Hill. "Raju excels at that inside-the-room reporting," a formerPolitico editor was quoted as saying. The article called Raju "one of the very few Indian American journalists in such a prominent position in the mainstream media."[2]
In 2017, Raju and Jeremy Herb reported for CNN that theDonald Trump 2016 presidential campaign, includingDonald Trump Jr, had access to hacked documents fromWikiLeaks before such documents were publicly available. The story was found to be incorrect and was retracted. CNN's report was criticized byJulian Assange, and Trump Jr. tweeted at Manu Raju, "I won't hold my breath for an apology, or for you to call out your puppet masters on the left that fed you BS knowing you would gleefully run with it without ever checking the other side". However, CNN stated it would not take disciplinary action as Raju had followed CNN's editorial standards process.[7][8][9][10][11][12]
Raju broke a major news story in January 2017 when he detailed a stock trade that raised ethical and legal questions forTom Price, President Donald Trump's Health and Human Services nominee.[13] The Trump administration requested a retraction, but fact-checkers found Raju's story to be accurate, and Wemple called Raju's reporting on the story "a model of careful and measured journalism."[14]
On January 6, 2021, Raju was broadcasting inside the U.S. Capitol during theattack on the building, reporting in real-time events as they were unfolding.[15]
In 2021, CNN announced Raju had been promoted to the network's chief congressional correspondent.[16]
In August 2023, CNN announced that Raju would begin anchoring the Sunday edition of Inside Politics while maintaining his role on Capitol Hill.[17]
In 2012, Raju was part of a team of four reporters that won theWhite House Correspondents Association's prestigiousMerriman Smith Memorial Award for presidential reporting under deadline pressure for their coverage of the2011 debt ceiling crisis. In 2015, Raju was awarded first prize by theSociety of Professional Journalists in D.C. for beat coverage of the2014 midterm elections, and aFolio Eddie Award for a feature profile he co-authored on SenatorElizabeth Warren.[3]
In 2015,Washington Life magazine named Raju one of the city's "movers and shakers" under the age of 40.[18] That year, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame for his high school, Hinsdale South.
In 2017, Raju was honored with the 2016 Joan Shorenstein Barone Award[19] for excellence in Washington-based reporting of Congressional and political affairs for his coverage of Congress and campaign politics. He was given the award at the 2017 Radio and TV Correspondents Association dinner in Washington, where the host, Bobby Bones, credited his "tenacity" and "relentless" coverage. The judges awarded Raju with the prize for his piece detailing how the New Hampshire Senate candidates from both parties struggled to embrace their respective presidential nominees, providing "forward-looking and sharp coverage of the dynamics affecting congressional races around the country" and "skillfully questioning candidates by pushing them to go beyond talking points."
Raju and his wife, Archana Mehta, are the parents of twins, a boy and girl, born in 2015.[2]
Raju's brother,Sharat Raju is a film and TV director.
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