- Farnaz Fassihi
Farnaz Fassihi is the deputy bureau chief of Middle East and Africa for "
The Wall Street Journal " and theauthor of "Waiting for An Ordinary Day", a memoir of her four years covering theIraq war and witnessing the unraveling of life for Iraqi citizens.She was born
May 25 ,1971 in the United States to Iranian parents and grew up inTehran , Iran andPortland, Oregon . She received a B.A. in English fromTehran University and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.Fassihi is widely known for penning a famous email in 2004 about the deteriorating situation in Iraq, which was hailed as the first unvarnished account of the war. The email was published in newspapers, websites and blogs around the world and became the subject of a "
Doonesbury " cartoon. Her email is included in an anthology of historical letters written by American women, "Women’s Letters, America from the Revolutionary War to the Present."She contributed an essay about the Iraq war and propaganda in the book, "What Orwell Didn’t Know, Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics."
Her essays on the subject of journalism, conflict reporting and courage have been published by
Harvard University ’s Neiman Reports magazine andColumbia Journalism Review .In May 2006, she was awarded the prestigious Henry Pringle Lecture Award for her Iraq coverage by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Her coverage of the EgyptAir flight 990 crash won the New England News Executive Award as well as a finalist nomination for the Livingston Award.
She has been a guest speaker at numerous panels and journalism classes and a commentator for television and radio news shows on "CNN, MSNBC, BBC, WNYC, PBS" and "National Public Radio".
Prior to joining the Journal, she was an investigative reporter and roving foreign correspondent for "The Star-Ledger" of Newark, NJ, a local news reporter for "The Providence Journal" in Rhode Island and a stringer for "The New York Times" in Iran and New York City.
She covered the September 11 attacks on the
World Trade Center from the foot of the collapsed towers and then followed the story to Afghanistan. She has covered three wars and has reported extensively from the Middle East.External Links
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/books/02kaku.html?pagewanted=all New York Times review of her book “Waiting for an Ordinary Day”]
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