MARTHA RADDATZ
WINNER OF THE 2008 URBINO PRESS AWARD
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Source: ABC
Martha Raddatz was named Senior Foreign Affairs correspondent for ABC News in November 2008, after serving as chief White House correspondent during the last term of President George W. Bush’s administration.
In addition to covering the day-to-day foreign and domestic stories from the White House, Raddatz traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan numerous times, and to Iraq nearly 20 times to cover the ongoing conflict.
In the early hours of June 8, 2006, Raddatz was the first correspondent to report that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, had been killed in a U.S. air strike north of Baghdad. In 2007, the White House Correspondents’ Association awarded her the Merriman Smith Memorial Award for excellence in presidential news coverage under deadline pressure.
Raddatz joined ABC News in January 1999 as the network’s State Department correspondent, where she covered the conflict in the Middle East and traveled to Africa, Pakistan and India with Secretary of State Colin Powell. Her coverage at the State Department after the attacks of Sept. 11 was recognized, along with that of other ABC News recipients, with a Peabody Award as well as an Emmy Award.
In May 2004, Raddatz was named senior national security correspondent. During her time at the Pentagon, she reported exclusively on a number of stories, including the near-capture of al-Zarqawi in April 2005, plus the discovery of his laptop computer. She also broke the story that the attack on a U.S. military dining hall in Mosul, Iraq, in December 2004 was the work of a suicide bomber.
From 1993 to 1998, Raddatz was the Pentagon correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR), where she reported on foreign policy, defense and intelligence issues. During her tenure at NPR, she made numerous trips to Eastern Europe to cover the war in Bosnia.
Prior to joining NPR in 1993, Raddatz was the chief correspondent at the ABC News Boston affiliate WCVB-TV. In addition to covering several presidential campaigns, she reported from the former Soviet Union, Africa, the Middle East, the Philippines and Europe.
In addition to the Emmy Award for coverage of Sept. 11, Raddatz has received two other national Emmy Awards for her reporting. She was also the recipient the 2007 International Urbino Press Award, the 2005 Daniel Pearl Award from the Chicago Journalists Association and a 1996 Overseas Press Club Award for her live coverage of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Her reporting was also recognized with the National Headliner Award for team coverage of the 1988 presidential campaign.
Raddatz is the author of “The Long Road Home — a Story of War and Family.” The highly acclaimed book was released in March 2007, making both the New York Times and Washington Post bestseller lists. The Washington Post described the book as “a masterpiece of literary nonfiction that rivals any war-related classic that has preceded it.”
Raddatz is a frequent guest on PBS’s “Washington Week” and “Charlie Rose.