Drew Ambrose
In a career spanning 17 years, Drew Ambrose has worked as a foreign correspondent, investigative reporter and documentary maker. Currently he a senior on-air presenter who reports across the Asia-Pacific region for the international news network Al Jazeera English.
Aside from traditional broadcasting, Drew has been the lead online journalist for many acclaimed innovative digital projects.
Drew has made more than 85 television programmes in 36 nations over the past decade for Al Jazeera’s flagship current affairs program 101 East. Some of these documentaries have been among the highest rating shows on the news network.
His work has tackled a range of difficult topics including dolphin hunting, secret torture centres, deforestation, clergy abuse, pandemic medical waste dumping, cyber-pedophila, enforced disappearances, slavery, sex trafficking and indigenous incarceration. Throughout his career, Drew has been on the frontline of some of the region’s biggest stories including the Rohingya Refugee Crisis, Typhoon Haiyan, North Korean nuclear tensions, the 2014 Thailand Coup, Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday Bombings, the Black Saturday Bushfires as well as the Yogyakarta Earthquake.
Some of these stories have been conducted in dangerous locations such as Pakistan, Syria, Papua New Guinea and post war Sri Lanka. Two years ago, Drew was expelled from Malaysia after the police launched a criminal investigation, arrested a whistleblower and raided Al Jazeera’s bureau for a documentary he produced on the plight of migrants during the coronavirus pandemic. The move triggered condemnation by human rights and press freedom groups who said the information contained in the documentary was accurate and true. The Global Investigative Journalism Network listed the documentary as one of the best pieces of reporting in 2020.
Born and raised in Melbourne, Drew now resides in regional New South Wales This year, he was an Our Watch Reporting Fellow. Drew holds a Masters of Development and Bachelor of Arts from RMIT University. In 2022, he is the series producer of a four part documentary series for Al Jazeera that examines life in four unique communities that make the world a special place.
