Anne Garrels

Anne Longworth Garrels (July 2, 1951 – September 7, 2022) was an American broadcast journalist who worked as a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, as well as for ABC and NBC, and other media.Engle, Jane
"From Beijing to Baghdad, Garrels strayed far to the drumbeat of war,"
L.A. Press Club, retrieved September 8, 2022

In the mid-1970s, when she worked for ABC (including as producer), Garrels was one of the few women national broadcast journalists in the United States -- eventually serving as ABC's Moscow Bureau Chief in the Soviet Union, until expelled for her detailed, unflattering reporting on the country and its issues. She became a war correspondent for ABC, covering Central American conflicts. She later became NBC's reporter at the U.S. State Department.

In 1988, Garrels began her 22-year career as a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR), closely covering conflicts and other major events throughout the world, earning numerous media awards, most famously for covering the 2003 Iraq War and its aftermath -- at one point the only American broadcast journalist in Iraq's war-torn capital.

Garrels was active in journalism-related organizations, and global affairs causes, and wrote two noted books -- one about the Soviet Union, and one about the Iraq war and its aftermath, both recounting her own experiences, as well as providing detailed historical coverage of those places in that time.

Background and education

Anne Longworth Garrels was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on July 2, 1951, the daughter of Valerie (Smith) and John C. Garrels, Jr. She spent part of her childhood in London, where her father worked as an executive for Monsanto. She was educated at St Catherine's School, Bramley.

Garrels returned to the United States and enrolled at Middlebury College, but later transferred to Harvard University's Radcliffe College, where she studied Russian and graduated in 1972."Alumnae to be honored by Radcliffe Association in June,"
May 30, 2002, ''Harvard Gazette,'' Harvard University, retrieved September 9, 2022

Career

Early career

In 1975, Garrels worked for the ABC television network in several positions for ten years, including as producerone of the few women broadcast journalists at the time."Remembering longtime NPR foreign correspondent Anne Garrels who died at 71,"
September 8, 2022, ''Morning Edition,'' National Public Radio (NPR)"Anne Garrels"
from "Board of Directors," at Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), retrieved September 9, 2022

She served ABC in the Soviet Union as Moscow bureau chief and correspondent until she was expelled in 1982. Able to speak Russian, and "in love" with the country, she was noted for more in-depth reporting from that country than most other U.S. journalists. She interviewed prominent Soviet dissidents Andrei Sakharov, Roy Medvedev, and Sergei Kovalyov. Her reporting exposed numerous hardships of Soviet citizens, displeasing the Soviet government, resulting in her 1982 expulsion. She did not return until 1988, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

As ABC's Central American bureau chief from 1984 to 1985, she covered the wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Garrels was the NBC News correspondent at the U.S. State Department.

In mid-1988, Garrels hosted ''Science Journal,'' a 25-part weekly news series on science, medicine and technology, at WETA-TV, and aired by PBS. It was the first such television series of its kind, with panel discussions among experts and journalists.Brennan, Patricia
"Wimbledon Tennis, 'Capitol Fourth,' 'Science Journal',"
July 3, 1988, ''Washington Post,'' retrieved September 11, 2022Brennan, Patricia
"All-Star Baseball, News Specials, Summer Comedy,"
July 10, 1988, ''Washington Post,'' retrieved September 11, 2022 However, Garrels' workload at National Public Radio (particularly as State Department correspondent), and a family illness, forced her to withdraw from the program that November."The TV Column"
''Washington Post''

NPR career

Garrels joined NPR in 1988 and reported on conflicts in Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, the West Bank, and Iraq. She also reported from China (and covered the Tiananmen Square Protests) and Saudi Arabia. She returned to Russia in 1988, as the Soviet Union began to collapse, and from 1993 until 1997 was NPR's Moscow bureau chief."Anne Garrels, Journalist,"
from "Our Fellows," Fall 2003, The Montgomery Fellows Program, Dartmouth College, retrieved September 9, 2022

Garrels was the Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in 1996, and was a member of the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists from 1999 until her death in 2022. She also served on the board of Oxfam America.

Following the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., in September 2001, and during the subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Garrels spent several months in northern Afghanistan with the Northern Alliance, and in or around Kabul, also traveling to Pakistan and Israel in early 2002.

Shortly before the U.S. and its coalition invaded Iraq in 2003, Garrels traveled there. and was one of the sixteen Western journalists who remained in Baghdad, and reported live during the 2003 Iraq War—and for a while was the only American broadcast reporter still broadcasting from the middle of Baghdad."Anne Garrels, Back in the U.S.A.,"
April 23, 2003, National Public Radio on WKSU-FM, retrieved September 9, 2022 Garrels survived the April 8, 2003, U.S. tank attack on the Palestine Hotel, where she and hundreds of other journalists were living."Foreign media suffer Baghdad losses,"
April 8, 2003, ''BBC News,'' retrieved September 11, 2022"Reporting From Baghdad During the War: NPR correspondent Anne Garrels describes what she observed and thought while reporting from Iraq,"
book excerpts, Winter 2003, ''Nieman Reports,'' Harvard University, retrieved September 11, 2022

Following the April 8, 2003, U.S. bombing of the Al Jazeera office in Baghdad, which killed journalist Tareq Ayyoub ("Tariq/Tareq Ayoub"),"3 scribes killed by US troops in Baghdad,"
April 9, 2003, ''Hindustan Times'' (citing ''Al Jazeera''), retrieved September 11, 2022 Garrels reportedly said that Ayyoub should have known better than to be in his office during the invasion—a comment that raised angry responses from some in the international journalism community, who accused her of "blaming the victim." Goodman, Amy
"Independent Media in a Time of War, featuring Amy Goodman: Transcript"
2003, ''Democracy Now!,'' as transcribed at Media Education Foundation, retrieved September 11, 2022

Shortly after her return from Iraq, she published ''Naked in Baghdad'' (2003, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), a memoir of her time covering the events surrounding the invasion.Garrels, Ann, interviewed by Wolf Blitzer
"News from CNN: Book Documents Wartime Baghdad..."
transcript, September 10, 2004 CNN, retrieved September 11, 2022 She subsequently returned to Iraq several times for NPR. She was an embedded reporter with the U.S. Marines during the November 2004 attack on Fallujah. Garrels also covered the January 2005 Iraqi national elections for an interim government, as well as constitutional referendum and the December 2005 elections for the first full term Iraqi government. As sectarian violence swept much of central Iraq Garrels continued to report from Baghdad, Najaf and Basra.

In 2007 Garrels was criticized by FAIR for using confessions by prisoners who had been tortured, during a story about an Iraqi Shiite militia (broadcast on NPR's ''Morning Edition''). Garrels later defended her story on NPR's ''Letters'' program, saying: "Of course, I had doubts. But the details that were given seemed to me to gel with other things that I had heard from people who had not been tortured. But I was as uncomfortable as the listeners were with the conditions."

Garrels retired from NPR in 2010.

Late career

Garrels continued her work with the Committee to Protect Journalists until the end of her life, serving on its Board of Directors.

In 2016, she published her second book, ''Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia,'' with Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Toward the end of her life, Garrels served as a judge for the Overseas Press Club Awards, including the Lowell Thomas Award which she judged in 2021."OPC Award Judges,"
March 17, 2022, Overseas Press Club of America, retrieved September 11, 2022"People Remembered,"
in ''People Column,'' September 8, 2022, Overseas Press Club of America, retrieved September 11, 2022

After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Garrels, then 70 years old and undergoing treatment for cancer, approached NPR about coming out of retirement to cover the conflict. While her offer was declined, she started a non-profit organization, Assist-Ukraine, to raise money to support Ukraine and victims of the war, particularly medical supplies,"Anne Garrels,"
Assist-Ukraine, retrieved September 11, 2022 reportedly raising US$1 million for the cause.Voight, Heid
"A Tribute to War Correspondent and Pioneering Journalist Anne Garrels,"
September 7, 2022, NBC Connecticut, retrieved September 8, 2022

Personal life

In 1986, Garrels married J. Vinton Lawrence, one of two CIA paramilitary officers from the Special Activities Division stationed in Laos in the early 1960s, who worked with Hmong tribesmen and the CIA-owned airline Air America. They were married until Lawrence's death from leukemia in 2016.

Garrels lived in Norfolk, Connecticut, where she died from lung cancer on September 7, 2022, aged 71.

Awards and recognition

* 1992 Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award (as part of NPR team receiving the award), for coverage of the Gulf War"2005: Anne Garrels, National Public Radio,"
Trinity College (Connecticut), retrieved September 8, 2022
* 1994 Citation for Excellence, Madeline Dane Ross Award ("for best correspondent in any medium showing a concern for the human condition"), Overseas Press Club, for her NPR work: ''Russia: The Human Cost of Reform.''"The Madeline Dane Ross Award 1994,"
April 4, 1995, Overseas Press Club of America, retrieved September 11, 2022
* 1996–97, Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
* 1997 Silver Baton, Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, (and NPR) for coverage of the former Soviet Union."Documentary Series on Former Yugoslavia Wins Highest duPont-Columbia Journalism Award,"
press release #19037, January 16, 1997, Columbia University, retrieved September 11, 2022
* 1998 Whitman Bassow Award, Overseas Press Club, with Loren Jenkins, for an NPR series on water issues around the globe."1998 OPC Award Winners,"
April 22, 1999, Overseas Press Club of America, retrieved September 11, 2022
* 2002 Alumnae Recognition Award, Radcliffe Association, Harvard University
* 2003 George Polk Award for Radio Reporting for her coverage of the war in Iraq,"Anne Garrels, an NPR Senior Foreign Correspondent, to Accept Missouri Honor Medal and Host Master Class,"
February 23, 2009, Missouri School of Journalism, University of Missouri, retrieved September 8, 2022 "enduring bombings, blackouts, thirst and intimidation to report from the besieged Iraqi capital of Baghdad.""George Polk Awards Past Winners"
George Polk Awards, Long Island University, retrieved September 11, 2022
* 2003 Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation ( IWMF).
* 2003 Fellowship, The Montgomery Fellows Program, Dartmouth College
* 2004 Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, (to NPR, specifically citing Garrels and 6 other NPR journalists), for coverage of the war in Iraq."Coverage of Iraq, NPR , duPont-Columbia Award Winner 2004,"
(video on Vimeo), posted 2011, Alfred I. duPont Awards, retrieved September 8, 2022
* 2004 Peabody Award, to NPR – specifically citing Garrels (first) and 9 other NPR journalists, for coverage of the war in Iraq."War in Iraq, National Public Radio,"
2004, Peabody Awards, retrieved September 8, 2022
* 2004 Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)."NPR Foreign Correspondent Anne Garrels Named 2004 Murrow Award Recipient,"
May 11, 2004 Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), retrieved September 8, 2022
* 2004 Fellow, Society of Professional Journalists"SPJ Names the 2004 Fellows of the Society"
September 14, 2004, Society of Professional Journalists, retrieved September 9, 2022
* 2004 Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism, Missouri School of Journalism, University of Missouri, (awarded in 2004, presented in 2009)
* 2006 Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University"Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting"
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, retrieved September 11, 2022
* 2010 Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism, Los Angeles Press Club"Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism"
Los Angeles Press Club, retrieved September 11, 2022
*2012 Inductee: "Writers & Journalists" category, Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame"Anne Garrels,"
2012 Inductee: Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame, retrieved September 8, 2022
* Inter-Action's Award for Excellence in Interrnational Reporting

Publications and programs

Books

* ''Naked in Baghdad: The Iraq War as Seen by NPR’s Correspondent,'' 2002, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (account of her 5 years as a radio correspondent in Iraq) (Excerpts at: ''Neiman Reports,'' Harvard University)
* ''Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia,'' 2016, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (study of Russian public, during the era of Vladimir Putin, particularly in Chelyabinsk, Russia)Smith, Wendy: "Want to See the Real Russia? Skip Moscow,"
February 26, 2016, ''Publishers Weekly'', retrieved September 9, 2022

Films

* ''Journalist: Killed in the Line of Duty,'' - Co-narrator, with Christiane Amanpour, Tom Brokaw, Walter Cronkite, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather (director: Steven Rosenbaum; host: Anderson Cooper)Yoder, Pamela
"Dying to Tell the Truth: The High Cost of Free Speech,"
March 31, 2004, ''Documentary'' Magazine, International Documentary Association, retrieved September 11, 2022

Television programs

* ''Science Journal,'' 25-part weekly news series on science, medicine and technology, 1988, WETA-TV / PBS

References

External links

*

NPR articles by Anne Garrels


Garrels' charitable non-profit organization.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Garrels, Anne
1951 births
2022 deaths
20th-century American journalists
21st-century American journalists
ABC News personalities
American expatriates in England
American foreign correspondents
American public radio personalities
American women journalists
Deaths from lung cancer in Connecticut
George Polk Award recipients
Middlebury College alumni
NBC News people
NPR personalities
People educated at St Catherine's School, Bramley
People from Norfolk, Connecticut
People from Springfield, Massachusetts
Radcliffe College alumni
21st-century American memoirists
American women memoirists
21st-century American women writers