Marcia Biggs | Author | PBS News
Marcia Biggs is a freelance journalist, focusing on international conflict and humanitarian crisis. She contributes regularly to The PBS NewsHour, reporting most recently on the crisis in Haiti. With over a decade in the Middle East, her work has highlighted the targeting of doctors in the Syrian civil war, the use of children in armed conflict in Iraq and Syria, as well as various stages of the battle for Mosul and the plight of Yazidi girls who have escaped ISIS captivity. In 2018, she became one of the few television journalists to travel to Yemen, producing a four part series for PBS. A pivot to Latin America then took her to Honduras, ground zero of the Central American migration crisis, and Venezuela, where she went undercover to report on the country’s healthcare disaster. Her work has won numerous awards, including a George Foster Peabody Award, Gracie Allen Award, and two Emmy nominations. Before her work with the NewsHour, Biggs produced reports for Al Jazeera English, Fox News Channel, CNN, and ABC News. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she completed her Bachelors degree in History at Vanderbilt University and her Masters degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the American University of Beirut.
Nation Jan 14
‘Everything we know is gone’: Fire victims face devastated communities, uncertain futureUnprecedented warnings about wind conditions have residents around the Los Angeles area on high alert again as firefighters work to control major blazes that have destroyed communities and taken at least 24 lives. Mayor Karen Bass issued an executive order…
World Nov 22
Boys forced into gangs, girls face sexual abuse as Haiti violence robs childhoodsGang warfare in Haiti has displaced about 700,000 people, more than half of them are children. The fighting has sent poverty and hunger skyrocketing and children are caught between the gangs and their tenuous futures. Special correspondent Marcia Biggs and…
World Nov 20
An inside look at how gang warfare in Haiti has devastated daily lifeDespite a UN-approved security mission that deployed in June to try and restore some order, large swaths of the country remain under gang control and violence is endemic. Special Correspondent Marcia Biggs and videographer Eric O'Connor traveled there for a…
World Mar 12
Widespread gang violence in Haiti continues, bolstered by weapons trafficked from the U.S.Months of raging gang violence came to a head today in Haiti. The prime minister, currently stranded in Puerto Rico, announced he would resign as soon as a transitional government is in place. Meanwhile, the widespread violence has recently been…
World May 08
Thousands try to flee Haiti as gangs terrorize innocent civiliansThe U.N. Security Council expressed deep concern over the security and humanitarian crises in Haiti. The Caribbean nation is in freefall without effective governance or protection from gangs that routinely terrorize innocent civilians with kidnappings, sexual abuse and murder. That…
World Dec 29
In Venezuela, an ongoing struggle for power amid a growing humanitarian disasterNext week in Venezuela a new parliament is set to be sworn in, after members of the opposition boycotted elections earlier this month. It leaves opposition leader Juan Guaido in an even more precarious position, and the country with an…
World Sep 17
Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis has only worsened under COVID-19In Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro has presided over an economic and societal collapse. The country’s health care system was already coming apart even before the coronavirus pandemic struck. Now, COVID-19 patients are filling ICUs that lack supplies, and doctors are…
World Feb 29
Venezuela’s oil-rich city crippled by ongoing crisesThe once-wealthy South American country of Venezuela is in the midst of political, economic and humanitarian crises made more severe by U.S. sanctions. And Venezuela's second-largest city, Maracaibo, was at one time the jewel of its petroleum economy. But the…
World Feb 26
How to help those in need in VenezuelaSeveral organizations are doing work in the country to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis.
World Feb 25
Sick Venezuelans struggle to survive amid crumbling health system, lack of careAs Venezuela grapples with a political, economic and humanitarian crisis, its health care system is crumbling. Shortages of doctors, drugs, power and clean water have led to illness epidemics, and families suffering the consequences no longer trust the country’s disintegrating…