Kathy Gannon

Kathy Gannon serves as News Director for Pakistan and Afghanistan for The Associated Press (AP). She has covered the region for the AP as a correspondent and bureau chief since 1988. She is the author of I is for Infidel: From Holy War, to Holy Terror, 18 Years Inside Afghanistan (2005). Gannon was the only Western journalist allowed in Kabul by the Taliban in the weeks preceding the 2001 US-British offensive in Afghanistan. In addition to her coverage of South Central Asia, she has covered the Middle East, including the 2006 Israeli war against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and war in northern Iraq. A native of Timmins, Ontario, she was the city editor at the Kelowna Courier in British Columbia and worked at several Canadian newspapers before her career took her overseas. She has lived in Israel, Japan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, received two honorary doctorates from Northern Canada universities and is the recipient of numerous awards, including: She has received two honorary doctorates from Northern Canada universities and is the recipient of numerous awards, including: Committee To Protect Journalists Burton Benjamin Lifetime Achievement Award; Tully Free Speech Award, S.I. Newhouse School of Communication, University of Syracuse; International Women’s Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award; Overseas Press Club Award for best newspaper or wire service reporting from abroad; John Peter and Anna Catherine Zenger Freedom of the Press Award from the University of Arizona School of Journalism; Grady College McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage from the University of Georgia; James Foley Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications; Canadian Journalists for Free Expression Tara Singh Hayer Memorial Award; Edward R. Murrow Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; National Newspaper Awards Governors’ Award and; AP Oliver S. Gramling Award in Journalism.