Ben McNitt began his career as a political reporter at the Arizona Daily Star and later moved to the Tucson Citizen as Arizona's first environmental reporter. In the early 1980s, he worked as a freelance reporter for CBS News in the Middle East and then became CNN's Cairo Bureau Chief and Mid-East correspondent. In the late 1980s, he started ghosting a syndicated column for United Features Syndicate and went on to work for the National Wildlife Federation as media director. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.