Sara Sidner grew up in Miami Lakes, Florida, and graduated from Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School. She then attended the University of Florida, where she played volleyball for the Gators, helping them reach the first-ever NCAA Final Four during her senior year. She began her on-air career at WUFT-TV in Gainesville, then worked at local stations in Missouri, Florida, and Texas. In January 2004, she joined KTVU in Oakland as a weekend co-anchor and weekday reporter.

Sidner joined CNN as an international correspondent around 2007, reporting first from New Delhi. There she covered the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks before postings to Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi. In 2014, she moved to CNN’s Los Angeles bureau to cover U.S. social and racial conflict, including the Ferguson protests. In 2022, she hosted Big Picture with Sara Sidner on the short-lived streaming service CNN+.

Sidner has co-anchored the morning edition of CNN News Central alongside John Berman and Kate Bolduan since April 2023. In January 2024, she disclosed on air that she had been diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. She completed chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, and radiation later that year, continuing to anchor throughout her treatment. Sidner has since used her platform to encourage regular breast cancer screening.