Today’s Morning Man: James Longman!

He looks like a hunky actor or a model but James Longman is actually an Emmy-winning journalist and foreign correspondent for US network ABC News.

Born in London, James covers breaking news around Europe and the Middle East. He has travelled from his base in the London bureau of ABC News to more than 50 countries on breaking news stories. He is often deployed to cover terror attacks as well as making features and news specials on all kinds of issues for ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight and Nightline.

James is gay and yesterday was his 38th birthday. He married Alex Brannan in 2022. He frequently posts about his profe3ssional life and his personal life on his Instagram page.

“When I’m on a story, I’m conscious of three audiences: the people I’m with in that place; the broader TV audience at home; and the young gay men and women who may see my work,” James wrote in 2022.

Before going to work for ABC News, James worked at the BBC where he worked as a general news reporter and the corporation’s Beirut correspondent. Fluent in Arabic and French, he specialized in the Middle East, and regularly reported on issues around the refugee crisis and the Arab world, as well as terrorist incidents around Europe.

James has a new book to be released on January 7 titled The Inherited Mind: A Story of Family, Hope, and the Genetics of Mental Illness. It’s part memoir, part science.

He described the book in a recent Instagram post: “It tells the story of my dad John, who had schizophrenia and ended his life when I was 9. My uncle also had schizophrenia, and my grandfather also ended his life. So much of my family history was kept from me, so the book is an investigation of my dad’s illness, his life and his death. I tell the story of my upbringing, the characters around me as I grew up, and my own experiences with depression.”

James spoke to geneticists, neuroscientists and mental health experts, to those who have had similar familial experiences and aims to show how much our bodies can empower and inform us about our own personal mental health histories.

Hope it’s a bestseller!

Happy birthday James.