John William Kifner (born 1942) is a former senior foreign correspondent for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. Kifner, who was born in 1942 in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York served as an editor on his

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim ...

student newspaper, ''The Williams Record''. He joined ''The New York Times'' as a copy boy in 1963 and sought reporting assignments, becoming a metropolitan reporter with the Times in October 1988. After serving as bureau chief in Cairo from October 1985, he continued to cover both national and foreign stories. In 2003, he reported the initial attacks of the war in Iraq with the Marines and in 2004 he covered the conflict from Falluja. Kifner also was in the first

Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...

in 1991 with the

101st Airborne Division The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division (military), division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault military operation, operations. The 101st is designed to plan, coordinat ...

. Kifner has reported on the wars and conflict in Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Israel-Occupied Gaza, Southern Yemen and the former Yugoslavia. Since joining ''The New York Times'' in 1963, Kifner has been both a national and a foreign correspondent based first in Chicago and then Boston. He became bureau chief in Beirut in October 1979, then transferred to Warsaw in May 1982, and again was reassigned to Beirut in May 1984. While in the Middle East, Kifner covered the

Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Impe ...

in 1979 and won a George Polk Memorial Award that year for his reporting of the event. Throughout his career, Kifner has received numerous awards, including the 1998 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism from the

Annenberg Public Policy Center The Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) is a center for the study of public policy at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. It has offices in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, where the University of Pennsy ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

. The award was won for the body of his work, for both foreign and domestic reporting. The Annenberg School for Communication, which administers the award, cited his ability to translate "complicated changes in the political, economic and cultural landscape for American readers." The award is given in honor of

John Chancellor John William Chancellor (July 14, 1927 – July 12, 1996) was an American journalist who spent most of his career with NBC News. He is considered a pioneer in television news. Chancellor served as anchor of the ''NBC Nightly News'' from 1970 to ...

, the NBC television correspondent and anchor who died in 1996. JOHN KIFNER

Kifner graduated from Williams College in 1963 and attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

on a

Nieman Fellowship The Nieman Fellowship is a fellowship from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. It awards multiple types of fellowships. Nieman Fellowships for journalists The Nieman Fellowship is an award given to journalists by the Nieman ...

in 1971 and 1972. He currently resides in New York and still writes occasionally for the Times. Kifner's deep affection for his Siamese cats, Duke and Studs, is immortalized by ''New York Times'' colleague Christopher S. Wren in a passage from his book, ''The Cat Who Covered the World: The Adventures of Henrietta and Her Foreign Correspondent'', (

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, 2000).

Recent work

*(2008)
"Of Turbans and Neckties: Why Past Defines Present"
''dispatches''.

References

Bio at quarterly journal ''dispatches''Pariticipants
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Recipients. Kifner
colby.ed * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kifner, John American male journalists Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award recipients Living people The New York Times journalists Williams College alumni Nieman Fellows People from Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York 1942 births