Deborah Amos
Deborah Amos covers the Middle East for NPR News. Her reports can be heard on NPR's award-winning Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition.
In 2009, Amos won the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting from Georgetown University and in 2010 was awarded the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award by Washington State University. Amos was part of a team of reporters who won a 2004 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for coverage of Iraq. A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1991-1992, Amos returned to Harvard in 2010 as a Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School.
In 2003, Amos returned to NPR after a decade in television news, including ABC's Nightline and World News Tonight, and the PBS programs NOW with Bill Moyers and Frontline.
When Amos first came to NPR in 1977, she worked first as a director and then a producer for Weekend All Things Considered until 1979. For the next six years, she worked on radio documentaries, which won her several significant honors. In 1982, Amos received the Prix Italia, the Ohio State Award, and a DuPont-Columbia Award for "Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown," and in 1984 she received a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for "Refugees."
From 1985 until 1993, Amos spend most of her time at NPR reporting overseas, including as the London Bureau Chief and as an NPR foreign correspondent based in Amman, Jordan. During that time, Amos won several awards, including a duPont-Columbia Award and a Breakthru Award, and widespread recognition for her coverage of the Gulf War in 1991.
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Amos is also the author of Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East (Public Affairs, 2010) and Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World (Simon and Schuster, 1992).
Amos is a Ferris Professor at Princeton, where she teaches journalism during the fall term.
Amos began her career after receiving a degree in broadcasting from the University of Florida at Gainesville.
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The militants have held Iraq's second largest city since June. Now, local Sunni residents are weary of ISIS, there are signs of strain within their ranks, and it's almost impossible to flee. -
The main forces fighting the self-declared Islamic State in Tikrit, Iraq, are Iran-backed Iraqi Shiite militias. Despite decades-long animosity between the nations, local Sunnis are joining them. -
ISIS militants now control the long-running black market in stolen artifacts. Experts are tracking damage to heritage sites in Iraq and Syria by satellite and doing what little they can to stop it. -
Saudi Arabia has agreed to introduce physical education for girls in its gender-segregated public schools. But there's opposition from hard-liners. -
The self-proclaimed Islamic State has recruited more than 2,000 young Saudi men. Some have already come back to carry out attacks on Saudi soil. The kingdom is preparing to confront the threat. -
Academic "Monuments Men" have donned disguises and dodged snipers to help save their country's cultural riches from looting and destruction. Heritage experts warn the losses so far are incalculable. -
Prince Turki al-Faisal, the ex-Saudi intelligence chief, says the "pinprick" attacks against the Islamic State are not proving effective. He also says the campaign needs to be better coordinated. -
The off-Broadway production is the work of a Syrian playwright trying to sort out the fear and distrust that have torn his country apart. It's written for audiences who only know Syria from the news.
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The royal family carried out the transition to a new monarch without a hitch. Still, the region is facing unprecedented turmoil and King Salman assumes the monarchy with several major challenges. -
The world has been focused in recent days on Muslims who have been radicalized. Here's the story of a radical who turned moderate. -
Known for its wealth, the United Arab Emirates has emerged as an ally in the U.S.-led fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State. -
"We like Iraq, but Iraq doesn't like us," says a displaced Christian man. He's just one of example of religious minorities who have been dislodged from parts of Iraq where they have ancient roots.
