Deborah Amos
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.
In 2009, Amos won the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting from Georgetown University and in 2010 was awarded the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award by Washington State University. Amos was part of a team of reporters who won a 2004 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for coverage of Iraq. A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1991-1992, Amos 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 a duPont-Columbia Award and a Breakthru 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 is a Ferris Professor at Princeton, where she teaches journalism during the fall term.
Amos began her career after receiving a degree in broadcasting from the University of Florida at Gainesville.
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Two million Syrian children have been displaced by the war. Many have witnessed violence and experienced trauma that could have life-long consequences. One of the biggest challenges for international aid agencies is healing the invisible scars of the youngest victims.
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The U.S. has provided more than $1.5 billion to Syria since the war began more than two years ago. Virtually all of it is has been spent on humanitarian aid and social programs, though that gets much less attention than the relatively small amount that goes to the Syrian rebels. -
Syrian rebel groups say the pipeline of weapons, ammunition and nonlethal aid pledged by the U.S. has slowed in recent weeks, as the Obama administration has shifted focus to destroying President Bashar Assad's chemical weapons. The rebels have a broader goal: destroying the Assad regime. -
An al-Qaida offshoot has taken Azaz from Western-backed Free Syrian Army fighters, demonstrating the growing power of jihadists. Azaz, an economic gateway between Syria and Turkey, is now cut off. -
More than 2 million Syrians are refugees in surrounding states. Germany has become the first European country to take in a contingent of refugees, saying they can stay for two years. -
Researchers argue that through social media and on-the-ground research, a detailed portrait of the Syrian rebels has emerged. This goes against the conventional wisdom, which holds that little is known about the rebel factions. -
After fleeing his native Syria, Mohammad al-Hariri became the most powerful man in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, where more than 120,000 refugees live. Aid workers view him as running a criminal enterprise, but they appear to have little choice but to work with him. -
After a string of defeats, Syrian rebels have scored rare victories around Dera'a, a key battlefront near Damascus. Rebel commanders say those gains could be lost without a dependable arms supply and promised U.S. aid. So far, those weapons haven't materialized. -
Syrian refugees have been pouring into Jordan since the war broke out. But over the past month, more Syrian refugees went back than came to Jordan. The returnees cite rough conditions in the Jordanian camps and recent rebel advances. -
Amid the turbulent Middle East, Jordan remains stable 鈥� for now. But internal and external pressures are mounting. From within, a faltering economy and a popular demand for a say in how the country is governed. And from without, a flood of refugees from Syria that are straining resources.
