TVNewser has learned ABC News correspondent Terry McCarthy is leaving the network for a job at CBS News. In an email to colleagues, obtained by TVNewser, McCarthy writes, "Has been a lot of fun working with you all over the past three years, even as our industry is changing so quickly all around us. Who knows where we will all be in the next three years!"

McCarthy was ABC's principal Iraq correspondent. He has reported extensively overseas, from China, India and other parts of the Middle East. Before ABC, McCarthy worked for Time magazine in Los Angeles. It was former ABCer, now CBS's VP for talent and development Barbara Fedida who helped McCarthy transition from print to TV three years ago.

He'll be based at the CBS News bureau in Los Angeles but continue to
cover international news.

> Update, Monday AM: The CBS press release is after the jump...

TERRY MCCARTHY IS NAMED CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT

Terry McCarthy has been named CBS News Correspondent, it was announced today by Sean McManus, President, CBS News and Sports. In this role, McCarthy will report on foreign news for CBS News broadcasts across the network. He will be based in Los Angeles and his appointment is effective immediately.

"Terry has done some of the most in depth and compelling reporting from around the globe in times of peace and conflict," said Sean McManus, President, CBS News and Sports. "We know that he will do great work for CBS News, bringing perspective and focus to our viewers."

Most recently, McCarthy was ABC News' principal Iraq correspondent. He covered the execution of Saddam Hussein, the battle for Baghdad and the U.S. troop surge under General Petraeus. He traveled throughout Iraq covering the war from the U.S. military and the Iraqi civilian perspectives, for which he won an Emmy Award in 2007. McCarthy also reported on Islamic radicals in Jordan, life along the Yangtze River in China, the North Korean nuclear threat, swine flu in Mexico and hurricanes in the Caribbean.

Prior to joining ABC News, McCarthy was the Los Angeles bureau chief for TIME magazine. His reports included the submarine sinking of a Japanese tourist boat off Hawaii, the Green River serial killer in Seattle, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and polygamy in Utah. He also followed the Lewis and Clark Trail across the Lolo Pass from Montana to Idaho, wrote about conservation of wilderness areas in Asia and saving big cats in Africa and reported on protecting the desert environment in Arizona.

Post 9/11, McCarthy covered the war in Afghanistan, where he opened TIME's Kabul office, and later went to Kuwait to follow the troops into Iraq in 2003. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, McCarthy set up TIME's bureau in Baghdad. His first forays into television came in Iraq, where he was part of the ABC News/TIME team that reported the special series "Iraq, Where Things Stand", which won two Emmy Awards in 2003 and 2004.

McCarthy began his reporting career working for the Irish Press in Dublin in 1984. He left Ireland to cover the civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the earthquake in Mexico City in 1985. He then became Southeast Asia correspondent for the Independent of London, covering the war in Cambodia, the military coup in Burma, and the opening up of Vietnam. From Bangkok he moved to Tokyo to cover Japan and Korea as the Independent's Tokyo bureau chief.

After moving to New York in 1995, he wrote for The New Yorker and the British satirical magazine Punch before joining TIME magazine. He traveled back to Asia to open TIME's Shanghai bureau in 1998 and became their roving East Asia correspondent. He reported from Beijing, Hong Kong, Manila, Saigon, Dili, Jakarta, Phnom Penh, Saipan and covered the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, the death of Pol Pot, East Timor's independence and the rapid emergence of China as a world power.

McCarthy was educated in a Benedictine monastery, studying Latin, Greek and philosophy, and fishes for trout when he is not working. He resides in Santa Monica with his wife and three children.