Karen Attiah

Karen Attiah (born August 12, 1986) is a Ghanaian-American writer and editor. She serves as Global Opinions editor for The Washington Post. With David Ignatius, Attiah won a 2019 George Polk Award for their writing about the murder of their colleague Jamal Khashoggi. She was also named 2019 Journalist of the Year Award by the National Association of Black Journalists for her coverage of Khashoggi's murder.

Karen Attiah
Attiah in 2017 as moderator for New America think tank
Born (1986-08-12) August 12, 1986
Desoto, Texas, United States
NationalityAmerican
Alma materNorthwestern University (BA)
Columbia SIPA (MA)
OccupationJournalist
Parent(s)
  • Grace Attiah (mother)

Early life

Attiah was born in Northeastern Texas in 1986 to a Nigerian-Ghanaian mother and Ghanaian father. Her father was a pulmonologist.[1] After a bachelor's degree at Northwestern University, Attiah won a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Accra, Ghana and obtained an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in 2012.[2]

Career

After graduate school, Attiah freelanced for the Associated Press from Curaçao. In 2014, she joined the Washington Post.[2] Attiah became the focus of international attention in October 2018 when a columnists she had recruited for the Washington Post's "Global Opinions" section, Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, went missing on 2 October 2018 after entering the Saudi embassy in Istanbul.[3] In an interview in Marie Claire, Attiah said her Whatsapp was suddenly flooded with "Jamal's missing" messages, and she felt she knew the worst had happened.[4] On October 5, two days after his disappearance, Attiah let his column space remain blank with the title "A missing voice" and her tweet with the empty space was retweeted by Christiane Amanpour and 1,206 others.[5] Since then she has been interviewed by major news outlets as the primary contact for Khashoggi's last published opinion, and she began writing about his death and advocating for investigation. In 2019, she received a number of awards for her efforts. She and David Ignatius won a George Polk Award for their writing about Khashoggi's murder.[2] Attiah was also named 2019 Journalist of the Year Award by the National Association of Black Journalists, recognized for “raising her voice and using the power of her pen to bring attention to and offer ongoing coverage” of Khashoggi's murder.[6] She was named to the 2019 Root 100 list, cited as “an evangelist for racial equity and justice and [...] a champion for columnist Jamal Khashoggi, whose assassination exposed violence against the press.”[7]

Attiah is writing a book about Khashoggi called Say Your Word, Then Leave, due out in 2022.[2]

In July 2019, Attiah accused Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, of making dog whistling attacks against Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley and asserting that it has helped to fuel President Donald Trump's rhetoric.[8]

In November 2020, Attiah tweeted fake news about pending French legislation, wrongly accusing French President Emmanuel Macron of planning to "give Muslim's kids ID numbers to go to schools".[9] Attiah later deleted her tweet and apologized to her colleagues, but not to Macron.[10]

References
  1. "Bergen County Native Shares Coronavirus Survival Story". Mahwah, NJ Patch. 2020-04-22. Retrieved 2020-12-07.
  2. ""All I Can Do is Tell My Truth." | Columbia SIPA". www.sipa.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2020-10-31.
  3. Interview about Attiah-Khasshoggi Global Opinion collaboration, Robin Wright's New Yorker collaboration with him, and Sarah Margon's interpretation as Washington director of Human Rights Watch on C-SPAN, 17 October 2018
  4. 17 October 2018 Article in Marie Claire by Kayla Webley Adler
  5. Washington Post Opinions tweet on 5 October 2018
  6. "Ghanaian American Karen Attiah receives top NABJ award". Africa Times. 2019-06-13. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
  7. "Karen Attiah". The Root. 2019. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
  8. Re, Greg (July 15, 2019). "AOC unloads on Trump after he tells progressive congresswomen to 'go back' to home countries". MSN News. Make no mistake: Nancy Pelosi's dogwhistling snipes at @AOC, Ilhan Omar, @RashidaTlaib and @RepPressley helped pave the way for this vicious, racist attack from the president.
  9. "France claims fake news after 'Muslim IDs for children' plan spreads online". The National. 2020-11-23.
  10. "Itinerary of a fake news: how France was accused of failing young Muslims". The Canadian. 2020-11-23.
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