Caryle Murphy with her nephews at Yellowstone National Park
Murphy interviewing Islamic scholar Ahmed Bin Baz in Jeddah
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Though no longer reporting for a major daily newspaper, Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Caryle Murphy [See her personal website ]is still plying her trade both in the U.S. and abroad.
Skeptical about the durability of the newspaper industry, Murphy accepted a company buyout from the Washington Post in 2006 to begin freelancing and pursue stories near and dear to her heart, especially in the Middle East, a troubled region raging with complexity and conflict, conditions, in other words, always appealing to an inquisitive journalist like herself.
Besides, as Murphy told me, ``I believe that change is a great catalyst for new opportunities.’’
So soon after taking her four nephews on the mother of all camping trips, which included a spectacular trip down the Green River in Utah and then to Yellowstone, she requested a visa from the Saudi government to work in the kingdom as a free-lance journalist.
She was pleasantly stunned to learn she had been approved by the government. But then again, timing is everything. ``Fortunately’’ Murphy said, ``I asked for a visa at a time when the Saudi government was trying to attract foreign correspondents to reside in the kingdom.''
Beginning in 2008, then, Murphy took up residence at a compound in Riyadh for foreign residents of the kingdom, where she remained for the next three years, mingling and blending with families from around the world, including ones from Egypt, Lebanon, South Africa, Spain, and India. Her yoga instructor was from Iran.
Murphy made it clear to me the foreign families weren’t forced to live in the compound; it was their choice largely because it provided more of a secular environment and came equipped with a number of amenities, including restaurants, a swimming pool and a gym without the strict gender segregation that is the custom in Saudi Arabia. And neither was Murphy required to wear a black robe over her clothes (like she did) when she left the compound during the day.
While in Riyadh, she reported for a number of news organizations, principally the Globalpost, the Christian Science Monitor and the National in Abu Dhabi.
Did she encounter any government-imposed restrictions interviewing local residents? `` For the most part, I was able to move around freely, meet Saudis with relative ease and report without interference’’ Murphy told me. Approaching government officials, however, remains a huge problem for most foreign journalists. The Saudi government, Murphy said, remains excessively secretive, making interviews difficult to land.
Fortunately, she found an abundance of gripping and newsworthy stories to report on without having to rely on government officials. She did this mainly by keeping her ear to the ground, listening closely to the concerns and pent-up anxieties of the residents, especially as violent protests erupted in countries all around them.
Back on American soil in 2011, Murphy became a public scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C.; a place that has long been considered a journalists best friend, especially for those who want to write books. It was at the Center where she researched and wrote her latest book, ``A Kingdom's Future: Saudi Arabia through the Eyes of its Twentysomethings.'' . Her residence at the Wilson Center ended in 2012.
Murphy tells me she’s not sure what’s she’ll do next, though it will almost certainly involve writing, hopefully in the journalism field, though she remains cynical about the industry’s future especially when she reads dim-witted headlines like the one she noticed the other day on Yahoo News, speculating as to who the next Bachelorette will be. ``Part of me’’ Murphy says,`` thinks that our civilization is passing through a technological-robotic-digital transformation whose destination we don’t yet see and that will change us in fundamental ways.’’
Before reporting full-time for the Post, Murphy was a free-lancer in the West African country of Angola, where she worked for Newsweek, the Sunday Times of London, and the Washington Post. After being hired by the Post full-time, she served as foreign correspondent during the tumultuous 1970's amid the Soweto student uprising and police murder of black leader Steve Biko, an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa. During the 1990’s she had a tour of duty as the Post’s Cairo Bureau Chief, responsible for covering the Arab world.
And as a crowning achievement to her courageous reporting, she was awarded a Pulitzer-Prize in 1991 in the category of International Reporting for her dispatches from occupied Kuwait, some of which she filed while in hiding from Iraqi authorities. She was also a recipient of the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting for her coverage of Iraqi-occupied Kuwait and subsequent 1990-91 Gulf War.
In addition to her book she wrote on Saudi Arabia during her residence at the Wilson Center, she also authored ``Passion for Islam’’ , which explores Islam's contemporary revival and the roots of religious extremism in the Middle East.
When not covering hot spot overseas, Murphy’s domestic assignments for the Post included U.S. immigration policy, U.S. federal court in Alexandria, Va. and religion. A year before accepting a company buyout (2006) she reported from Baghdad for three months. Outside of the newsroom, Murphy was the 1994-1995 Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Raised in Massachusetts, she is a graduate of Trinity University in Washington, D.C., and Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.
Murphy is single and lives in Washington D.C.
-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
March 11, 2013
congratulations to her.
Posted by: maryjane | 05/18/2017 at 01:00 AM