Barry Bearak, a New York Times reporter and a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, will speak at commencement ceremonies May 18 at the Assembly Hall in Champaign. Bearak’s work was cited by the Pulitzer committee for “his deeply affecting and illuminating coverage of daily life in war-torn Afghanistan” in 2001. Among his other honors are a George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting, the first prize of the South Asian Journalist Association for outstanding story of the year and the Mike Berger Award, given by Columbia University for reporting about New York City. Bearak earned his master’s degree in journalism at Illinois. While at Illinois, he won the graduate fiction prize and wrote for the Daily Illini. Prior to joining the Times in 1996, Bearak was a reporter for 14 years for the Los Angeles Times and six years for the Miami Herald.” “The sheer number of Mr. Bearak’s prestigious journalism awards attests to his remarkable talent and dedication,” said Ron Yates, head of the UI journalism department.
NY Times reporter to speak at commencement
