John Dinges (December 8, 1941) is an American journalist. He was special correspondent for ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'', ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' and ABC Radio in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. With a group of Chilean journalists, he cofounded the Chilean magazine ''

APSI ''APSI'' (an abbreviation of "Agencia Publicitaria de Servicios Informativos") was a Chilean magazine aimed as means of political opposition to the Pinochet dictatorship. It was headquartered in Santiago. History One of the tactics of the dictator ...

''. He is the Godfrey Lowell Cabot Professor of International Journalism at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Graduate School of Journalism, a position he held from 1996–2016, currently with emeritus status.

Early life and career

John Dinges was born in Iowa. He studied to become a Catholic priest for seven years. His first job in journalism was at the

Des Moines Register and Tribune ''The Des Moines Register'' is the daily morning newspaper of Des Moines, Iowa. History Early period The first newspaper in Des Moines was the ''Iowa Star''. In July 1849, Barlow Granger began the paper in an abandoned log cabin by the junctio ...

. He obtained a Masters Degree from Stanford University in Latin American studies. He worked on the foreign desk of The Washington Post, traveling as a reporter to cover the civil wars in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. From 1972 to 1978 Dinges lived in Chile, "one of the few American journalists to live in Chile during its most violent period of military rule". He helped create three Chilean media organizations:

/Actualidad Internacional in 1976, under intense military censorship which became one of the leading investigative news magazines exposing the abuses of the military. In collaboration with investigative journalists Jorge Escalante, Pascal Bonnefoy, María Olivia Mönckeberg and Maria Jose Vilches, he created ArchivosChile, which carried out groundbreaking investigations exploring the secret documentary record of the military government. ArchivosChile was based for several years in the University of Chile’s communications school, ICEI. The non-profit fundraising vehicle for the latter two projects has been the U.S.-based Center for Investigation and Information (CIINFO) of Washington DC. From 1985 to 1996 he worked at

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

as deputy senior foreign editor, managing editor, and editorial director. From 1996–2016 he was the Godfrey Lowell Cabot Professor of International Journalism at

Graduate School of Journalism, currently emeritus. In 2007 while in Chile for six-months as a visiting professor at Universidad Alberto Hurtado, he created an investigative journalism center with Monica González, one of Chile’s most prominent investigative reporters, whose newspaper Siete Mas Siete had just been closed, the Centro de Investigación e Información Periodística (CIPER).

Personal life

Dinges married Carolina Kenrick. They have 3 children; Tomas was born in Santiago in 1977 and lives and works in Chile, Sebastián and Camila were born in Washington DC.

Books

* ''Assassination on Embassy Row'' (Pantheon 1980), with

Saul Landau Saul Landau (January 15, 1936 – September 9, 2013) was an American journalist, filmmaker and commentator. He was also a professor emeritus at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where he taught history and digital media. Educa ...

, on

Orlando Letelier Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar (13 April 1932 – 21 September 1976) was a Chilean economist, politician and diplomat during the presidency of Salvador Allende. A refugee from the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, Letelier ...

's murder; finalist for the

Edgar Allan Poe Award The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...

1981 for "Best Fact Crime". *''Our Man in Panama'' (Random House 1990); book on

Manuel Noriega Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno (; February 11, 1934 – May 29, 2017) was a Panamanian dictator, politician and military officer who was the ''de facto'' List of heads of state of Panama, ruler of Panama from 1983 to 1989. An authoritaria ...

* ''The Condor Years: How Pinochet and his Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents'', The New Press 2003, about

Operation Condor Operation Condor ( es, link=no, Operación Cóndor, also known as ''Plan Cóndor''; pt, Operação Condor) was a United States–backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of o ...

. *''Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide to Radio Reporting and Production'' (editor), *''Independence and Integrity'' (editor).

Awards

*Maria Moors Cabot Prize for excellence in Latin American reporting * Latin American Studies Media Award *two Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Awards (as NPR Managing Editor). He serves on the advisory boards of

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

and the

National Security Archive The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy. The Nat ...

, and is a juror for the

Maria Moors Cabot Prizes The Maria Moors Cabot Prizes are the oldest international awards in the field of journalism. They are presented each fall by the Trustees of Columbia University to journalists in the Western hemisphere who are viewed as having made a significant co ...

and the du-Pont Columbia awards.

References

External links

www.johndinges.comFaculty pageArticles for The Nation
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dinges, John Living people American book editors American foreign policy writers American male non-fiction writers American radio reporters and correspondents American male journalists Maria Moors Cabot Prize winners The Washington Post people Columbia University faculty Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism faculty Operation Condor 1941 births