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.
-
Syrian rebel groups say the pipeline of weapons, ammunition and nonlethal aid pledged by the U.S. has slowed in recent weeks, as the Obama administration has shifted focus to destroying President Bashar Assad's chemical weapons. The rebels have a broader goal: destroying the Assad regime. -
An al-Qaida offshoot has taken Azaz from Western-backed Free Syrian Army fighters, demonstrating the growing power of jihadists. Azaz, an economic gateway between Syria and Turkey, is now cut off. -
NPR's Deborah Amos speaks with host Scott Simon about the war in Syria, including the recent fight for a small Christian town in the hills north of Damascus. The town is under attack by hard-line Islamist militants.
-
More than 2 million Syrians are refugees in surrounding states. Germany has become the first European country to take in a contingent of refugees, saying they can stay for two years. -
Researchers argue that through social media and on-the-ground research, a detailed portrait of the Syrian rebels has emerged. This goes against the conventional wisdom, which holds that little is known about the rebel factions. -
After fleeing his native Syria, Mohammad al-Hariri became the most powerful man in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, where more than 120,000 refugees live. Aid workers view him as running a criminal enterprise, but they appear to have little choice but to work with him. -
After a string of defeats, Syrian rebels have scored rare victories around Dera'a, a key battlefront near Damascus. Rebel commanders say those gains could be lost without a dependable arms supply and promised U.S. aid. So far, those weapons haven't materialized. -
Syrian refugees have been pouring into Jordan since the war broke out. But over the past month, more Syrian refugees went back than came to Jordan. The returnees cite rough conditions in the Jordanian camps and recent rebel advances. -
As the civil war continues, a new study says Syria's health care system is near collapse. Outbreaks of disease are on the rise in the country, and refugees sheltered beyond the border are also at great risk. -
It's happened across the Middle East — and now it's happening in Jordan. The country's government has cracked down on news and other Internet sites. A new law requires those sites to be registered with the government and have a member of Jordan's press council on staff. Some are calling it another form of censorship. -
Jordan is hosting major military exercises known as Eager Lion 2013. More than 15,000 soldiers from 18 countries, including the U.S., will be participating. The war games kicked off as Syria's civil war rages next door.
-
Since the Syrian uprising began, the opposition often seemed to have the momentum. But that dynamic seems to have changed recently. President Bashar Assad remains defiant and his army seems to be faring better, with help from Lebanon's Hezbollah militia.
