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Deborah Amos
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Deborah Amos

International Correspondent

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.

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Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World

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Stories By

Deborah Amos
Ronaldo Mouchawar, a native of Syria, is the founder of Souq.com, which is now considered the leading e-commerce site in the region. He says his company, which is based in Dubai, reflects a quiet transformation that is taking places in parts of the Arab world.

Ronaldo Mouchawar, a native of Syria, is the founder of Souq.com, which is now considered the leading e-commerce site in the region. He says his company, which is based in Dubai, reflects a quiet transformation that is taking places in parts of the Arab world. Courtesy of Souq.com hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Souq.com

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (right) and Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (left) shake hands as Oman's Minister for Foreign Affairs Yussef bin Alawi (second from right) and the former EU top diplomat Catherine Ashton watch in Muscat, Oman on Nov. 9. Iran is holding talks with six world powers in Vienna this weekend in advance Monday's deadline for a deal on Iran's nuclear program.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (right) and Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (left) shake hands as Oman's Minister for Foreign Affairs Yussef bin Alawi (second from right) and the former EU top diplomat Catherine Ashton watch in Muscat, Oman on Nov. 9. Iran is holding talks with six world powers in Vienna this weekend in advance Monday's deadline for a deal on Iran's nuclear program. Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

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Companies from Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran were among the more than 100 Internet startups at this year's Startup Istanbul event on Sept. 30. It was Iranian entrepreneurs' first time competing on an international stage. Courtesy of Startup Istanbul hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Startup Istanbul

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Alleged Islamic State militants stand next to an ISIS flag atop a hill in the Syrian town of Ain al-Arab, called Kobane by the Kurds, as seen from the Turkish-Syrian border in Suruc, Turkey, on Monday. Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

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Fighters from the Islamic State group parade in their northern Syrian stronghold, Raqqa. Uncredited/AP/Raqqa Media Center hide caption

itoggle caption Uncredited/AP/Raqqa Media Center

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Syrian rebel fighters in the northern city of Aleppo in August. The Obama administration has been vetting rebel groups and decided that more than a dozen are moderate enough to arm. Zein al-Rifai/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Zein al-Rifai/AFP/Getty Images

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