My guest today is Kathy Gannon, who reported for the Associated Press for 35 years, covering Afghanistan and Pakistan as chief correspondent and later news director. Gannon was the only Western journalist allowed in Kabul before the 2001 U.S.-British offensive. She also covered the Iraq War, the 2006 Lebanon War, and the Central Asian States.
In 2014, Gannon was critically injured while covering Afghan election preparations when an Afghan police officer opened fire on her car.
A Canadian native, Gannon has received numerous honors, including the 2022 Columbia Journalism School Lifetime Achievement Award and the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award. Since 2022, she has been looking at how we do our journalism and the compromises to our independence.
In 2025, Gannon will be teaching at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
For this episode of The Reporters, Gannon chose a story she wrote for the AP in 2017: “Islamic Schools in Pakistan Plagued by Sex Abuse of Children” Below are some highlights from our interview.
