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

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. Kifner, who was born in 1942 in

Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York Cornwall-on-Hudson is a riverfront village in the town of Cornwall, Orange County, New York, United States. It lies on the west bank of the Hudson River, approximately north of New York City. The population as of the 2010 census was 3,018. It ...

served as an editor on his

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

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 The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...

in 1991 with the 101st Airborne Division. 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 ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dyna ...

in 1979 and won a

George Polk George Polk (October 17, 1913 – May 1948) was an American journalist for CBS who was murdered during the Greek Civil War, in 1948. World War II During World War II, Polk enlisted with a Naval Construction Battalion. After the invasion of Guad ...

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 at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. 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 TV news. He served as anchor of the ''NBC Nightly News'' from 1970 to 1982 and continu ...

, 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 Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

on a

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

in 1971 and 1972. He currently resides in New York and still writes occasionally for the Times. Kifner's deep affection for his

Siamese cat The Siamese cat ( th, แมวไทย, Maeo Thai; แมวสยาม, Maeo Seeaam) is one of the first distinctly recognized breeds of Asian cat. Derived from the Wichianmat landrace, one of several varieties of cat native to Thailand ( ...

s, 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'', (

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pu ...

, 2000).

Recent work

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

References

Bio at quarterly journal ''dispatches''
https://web.archive.org/web/20110720000414/http://publicaffairs.missouristate.edu/conference/participants/default.asp?pid=65 http://www.poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=11520 http://www.colby.edu/academics_cs/goldfarb/lovejoy/recipients/hdkifner.cfm https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/wren-cat.html http://alumni-awards.williams.edu/bicentennial-medal/john-w-kifner/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Kifner, John American male journalists Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award recipients Living people The New York Times writers Williams College alumni Nieman Fellows People from Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York 1942 births