Now Playing

Podcasts & RSS Feeds

Deborah AmosRSS
All ContentRSS
View all podcasts & RSS feeds

Deborah Amos

Credit Steve Barrett

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.

Amos travels extensively across the Middle East covering a range of stories including the rise of well-educated Syria youth who are unqualified for jobs in a market-drive economy, a series focusing on the emerging power of Turkey and the plight of Iraqi refugees.

In 2009, Amos won the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting from Georgetown University and in 2010 was awarded the Edward R. Murrow Life Time Achievement Award by Washington State University. Amos was part of a team of reporters who won a 2004 Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia Award for coverage of Iraq. A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1991-1992, Amos was 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 an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award and a Break thru 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 began her career after receiving a degree in broadcasting from the University of Florida at Gainesville.

Pages

6:30am

Mon June 27, 2011
E-mail
Comments
Share
Middle East

Syria Allows Reporters To Travel To 'Massacre' Site

By

Syria's government has finally allowed a small group of western journalists into the country. They were allowed to travel to Jisr al Shughour, where Syrian officials say armed gangs staged a massacre. More than 300 soldiers and security personnel were killed.

3:00pm

Wed June 22, 2011
E-mail
Comments
Share
Middle East

Syria Faces Pressure From A Reliable Ally

By

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem lashed out Wednesday at new economic sanctions from Europe, but promised democracy in Syria within months.

In a television address, Moallem accused Europe of playing with fire for imposing a new round of economic sanctions. We will forget that Europe is on the map, he said.

But Moallem also called on Syrian dissidents to come to Damascus for talks. He invited political exiles home and promised constitutional change, adding meat to the bones of President Bashar Assad's speech Monday.

Read more

5:35am

Tue June 21, 2011
E-mail
Comments
Share
Middle East

Syria's Assad Warns Of Dangerous Economic Climate

By
Credit Ho/SANA / AFP/Getty Images

Syria has been hit hard by a protest movement that has disrupted business, farming and trade.

In a speech to the country at Damascus University Monday, President Bashar Assad told his supporters: "The most dangerous thing we face in the coming period is the collapse of the economy."

It's feared financial pressures may be a greater threat than protests.

In normal times, the Lebanese-Syrian border is a busy place. But now, there are hardly any cars, hardly anyone standing in line to cross.

Read more

12:01am

Thu June 16, 2011
E-mail
Comments
Share
Middle East

Syrian Tactics Estrange Media Supporters In Lebanon

By

After three months of demonstrations in Syria, it is a daily struggle to get an accurate picture of events. The Syrian government has banned most international media, and Syria's state TV presents an official version contradicted by an anti-regime protest movement that bolsters its narrative with video clips and Facebook postings.

In neighboring Lebanon, even news editors supportive of President Bashar Assad's regime say Syria is losing credibility in the media war.

A Lebanese Paper, Close To Syria

Read more

4:00am

Mon June 13, 2011
E-mail
Comments
Share
Middle East

Syrian Troops Regain Control Of Northern Town

By

Over the weekend, Syrian troops regained control of a town near the border with Turkey. There was heavy fighting reported, and a mass grave was discovered.

Pages