Marie Colvin Biography

Marie Catherine Colvin (1956 – February 22, 2012) was an American journalist who worked for the British newspaper The Sunday Times from 1985. She was killed while covering the Siege of Homs in Syria. Marie Catherine Colvin was born in Oyster Bay, Nassau County, on Long Island in New York State. She graduated from Oyster Bay High School in 1974 and attended Yale University.

Colvin started her career a year after graduating from Yale as a midnight-to-6 a.m. police reporter for United Press International in New York City. In 1984, Colvin became the Paris bureau chief for United Press International, moving to The Sunday Times in 1985. Starting in 1986, she was the newspaper's Middle East correspondent, and then from 1995 was the Foreign Affairs correspondent. In 1986, she was the first to interview Muammar Gaddafi after Operation El Dorado Canyon. Although specializing in the Middle East, she also covered conflicts in Chechnya, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka. She won the International Women's Media Foundation award for 'Courage in Journalism' for her coverage of Kosovo and Chechnya. She wrote and produced documentaries, including Arafat: Behind the Myth for the BBC. She is featured in the 2005 documentary film Bearing Witness. She lost her left eye to shrapnel on April 16, 2001 while working in Sri Lanka,

Colvin had made her last broadcast on the evening of 21 February 2012, appearing on the BBC, CNN, ITN News and Channel4 via satellite phone.

Colvin was killed by an artillery shell in Homs, Syria, along with award-winning French photographer Rémi Ochlik during the 2011–2012 Syrian uprising.

2000: Journalist of the Year: Foreign Press Association.
2000: Courage in Journalism: International Women's Media Foundation.
2001: Foreign Reporter of the Year:British Press Awards
2010: Foreign Reporter of the Year:British Press Awards (second award).