Remembering four-time duPont Award winner Anne Garrels

Dianna Douglas/NPR

This week, veteran NPR correspondent and four-time duPont-Columbia award winner Anne Garrels passed away at the age of 71. For over two decades, Garrels served as an international correspondent for NPR, covering turmoil and conflict in the Soviet Union, Tiananmen Square, Bosnia, Chechnya, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

Over the course of her career, Garrels was recognized by the duPont Awards for her reporting in the Soviet Union, in Afghanistan, and twice for her reporting in Iraq. In 2003, when the U.S. mounted its aggressive “shock and awe” campaign, Garrels stayed in Iraq - and for a time was the only U.S. journalist reporting from Baghdad, according to her New York Times obituary.

The 1997 duPont-Columbia award for her coverage of the former Soviet Union described Garrels as “equally adept at political and economic coverage as she is with feature stories about cultural curiosities… [her] reporting is full of history, context, analysis and humor combined with the skillful use of natural sound.” 

In honor of Garrels’ career, we invite you to review some of her duPont award-winning work and her acceptance speeches, available here: 1997 award for coverage of the former Soviet Union; 2003 award for coverage of 9/11 and the War in Afghanistan; 2004 award for coverage of Iraq; 2007 award for coverage of Iraq.