Richard Roth, CNN‘s senior UN correspondent, and the company’s last original employee is recovering following a successful kidney transplant earlier this week.
“How do you appreciate someone who gets you off dialysis and saves your life?” Roth writes in a note to coworkers on Friday.
Roth has publicly expressed gratitude to his donor, Samira Jafari, whom he refers to as his “heroine.” CNN’s investigative unit’s deputy managing editor is Jafari.
“This tale should be about her,” he argues, “and how urgent the need for live donors is to alleviate the agony of the over 100,000 people who are desperately seeking an organ to save their lives.”
Who is Samira Jafari?
Samira Jafari is a senior editor for CNN’s investigations team, based in Atlanta.
Previously, Jafari served as executive editor of The Row, CNN’s editorial oversight team that is responsible for script and story approval across all platforms worldwide. She has overseen the editorial integrity of several award-winning,
projects, including “Beneath the Skin,” CNN’s year-long investigation into the controversial police shooting of a black teen in Chicago.
Before joining CNN in 2008, she was a correspondent for the Associated Press. A University of Georgia graduate, Jafari is a proud member of the Georgia First Amendment.
Foundation Board of Directors and Chair of the Board of The Red & Black, an independent student newspaper serving the University of Georgia community.
She was born in Tehran, Iran, and immigrated to the United States with her parents in 1984.
