Chris Simkins

Chris Simkins is a video journalist with the Voice of America. He’s been with the agency since 1992. He covers domestic U.S. news and feature stories and is a producer of several award-winning documentaries and special project reports.

Chris began his career in Broadcast Journalism in High School working at two North Carolina radio stations as a disc jockey. He was a radio news reporter and anchor of four daily newscasts. After graduating from Emerson College in Boston, Chris worked as a general assignment reporter for two local televisions in Massachusetts and North Carolina.

In 1989, he formed his own production company that produced a football coach’s show and marketing videos for local businesses.

Three years later, Chris joined VOA as a National Desk writer and correspondent covering issues of interest to the African American community. He served as a New York Bureau and United Nations correspondent for two years. In 1996, Chris moved to Hong Kong to become VOA's East Asia Pacific correspondent. He traveled throughout Asia covering political, social and human interest stories.

He returned to Washington in 2000 becoming a video journalist covering both domestic and international television news and feature stories.

In 2017, Chris created an opioid abuse and addiction television series, which gave VOA’s audience an up-close and personal look at the opioid epidemic in the United States. In 2018, he launched a yearlong documentary series to trace the lives of people impacted by the opioid crisis in three U.S. communities. In 2019, the project won first place for outstanding public affairs program by the Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcasters Association.