Lee Hockstader

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Lee Hockstader
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Born (1959-07-19) July 19, 1959 (age 65)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materBrown University
OccupationJournalist

Lee Hockstader (born July 19, 1959) is an American journalist who has spent four decades as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist for The Washington Post. His coverage of some of the biggest news stories of his time has been cited as an authoritative source of reporting and analysis of international affairs. He is currently the Post’s European Affairs columnist, based in Paris.

Early life and education

A native of New York City, Hockstader earned a BA in American History at Brown University.[1] As editor of the Brown Daily Herald, he launched his international reporting career by traveling to Moscow with a Herald colleague in December 1979 to interview the dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov. The interview, conducted a month before Sakharov’s arrest and banishment to internal exile, produced three articles that described the Nobel laureate’s life under surveillance and quoted his views on Soviet political repression, international human rights advocacy, American hostages in Iran, nuclear arms control and Cambodia’s post-war humanitarian crisis. A fourth article described how the two young journalists managed to smuggle their hidden interview notes out of the Soviet Union despite a nerve-racking security search at the airport. [2] [3] [4] [5] Their articles were published in the Herald and student newspapers at other Ivy League universities and cited in the Providence Journal.[6]

After graduation from Brown, Hockstader moved to Malaysia as a Henry Luce Scholar (1982-83).[7] He took mid-career breaks to study at Harvard University’s Russian Research Center (1992-93) and at Stanford University as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow (2008-09).[8] [9]

Career

Hockstader has reported for the Post from more than 50 countries. He started on the newspaper’s D.C.-area reporting staff in 1984, and in 1989 was assigned as an international correspondent, working from bases in Central America (1989-92), Moscow (1993-97), Rome (1997-98) and Jerusalem (1998-2002). He also did a stint as a national correspondent based in Austin, Texas (2002-04).[10]

Reflecting on his international assignments, Hockstader told Amalia Perez in an interview for the Brown Journal of World Affairs, “When I arrived in places, they were a lot more peaceful than when I left them.” Although he didn’t want or expect to become a combat correspondent, he said, “What came to me by happenstance was a lot of war, violence and combat coverage” in Central America, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union.”[11]

In December 2000, while assigned as chief of the Post’s Jerusalem bureau, the bureau’s car and one owned by Hockstader were doused with gasoline and set on fire at the front gate of the bureau, which also served as his home. The cars were destroyed. No suspect was identified.[12]

Hockstader joined the newspaper’s Editorial Board in 2004.[13] [14] His editorials covered a variety of subjects, including state and local issues in Virginia and Maryland, immigration, politics, voting rights, police accountability, the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandals, and foreign affairs.

He began his assignment as a columnist in Europe in 2023, writing on political, security and other matters, including the war in Ukraine.[15]

Academic specialists and other commentators have cited Hockstader’s reporting as an authoritative source on developments in Latin America,[16] Russia, [17] [18] [19] and the Middle East [20] [21] [22] in previous decades and on contemporary European politics. His work has been referenced in the U.S. Congressional Record. [23] [24] He is a frequent panelist at gatherings to discuss pivotal world events or explain U.S. politics to European audiences.[25] [26] [27]

Noam Chomsky, the linguist and activist, quoted extensive passages of Hockstader’s reporting in the early 1990s to make his own points against U.S. policy toward Haiti[28] and post-Cold-War domination of Central America by right-wing political forces.[29]

A passage from Hockstader’s reporting from El Salvador formed the first chapter of Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar, Matt McAllester’s collection of stories about food and eating in dangerous conflict zones.[30]

Hockstader’s work has stirred criticism and debate. Gavin Mortimer argued in The Spectator that the columnist got it backwards when he described President-elect Donald Trump as “a dangerous role model to a rising cadre of European wannabes.” Mortimer wrote: “Trump’s form of political leadership originated in Europe at the turn of this century.”[31] Lowell Feld, founder of the pro-Democratic blog Blue Virginia, complained that Hockstader rarely visited Virginia before writing the Washington Post’s endorsements of candidates for public office in that state. The columnist, he wrote, is a “long-time foreign correspondent for whom Virginia politics is apparently a foreign country.” [32]

Partisan media-watchdog groups have taken issue with some of Hockstader’s coverage. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, an American non-profit, pro-Israel research organization, said his reporting from the Palestinian territories included “heavily tilted human interest stories sympathetic to the Palestinians emphasizing the emotional pull of ‘victimhood’ rather than facts and hard news.”[33] Fair & Accuracy in Reporting, a left-leaning organization, challenged Hockstader’s 2011 characterization of Haitian President-elect Michel Martelly as “a fresh, vital force on the political scene.” It noted Martelly’s election by a historically low voter turnout and his ties to the country’s Duvalier family dictatorship (1957-86).[34]

Awards and honors

Hockstader won a 2015 Sigma Delta Chi award for editorial writing about the senseless deaths in prison and police custody of three people, two of whom suffered from mental illness.[35] He was a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for a series of editorials that pushed for accountability in the fatal shooting of an unarmed young man by U.S. Park Police three years earlier. [36] In 2014 Hockstader was awarded the Post’s Eugene Meyer Award for lifetime achievement.[37]

References

  1. ↑ Hockstader, Lee (2016). "On Nontraditional Journalism and International Scrutiny. An interview with Amalia Perez". The Brown Journal of World Affairs. 22 (2): 85. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  2. ↑ Bunch, William; Hockstader, Lee (February 4, 1980). "Saharov, before arrest, saw increase of Soviet repression". No. CXIV, 4. Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  3. ↑ Bunch, William; Hockstader, Lee (February 5, 1980). "Sakharov endorses SALT II agreement". No. CXIV, 5. Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  4. ↑ Bunch, William; Hockstader, Lee (February 6, 1980). "Russian trip: A dinner with Sakharov". No. CXIV, 6. Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  5. ↑ Bunch, William; Hockstader, Lee (February 7, 1980). "A Russian escape". No. CXIV, 7. Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  6. ↑ "Sakharov interviewed by 2 Brown students". Providence Journal. February 5, 1980. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  7. ↑ "Luce Scholars Directory". Henry Luce Foundation. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  8. ↑ "Class of 2009". John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships. Stanford University. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  9. ↑ "Lee Hockstader". washingtonpost.com. Washington Post. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  10. ↑ Hockstader, Lee (2016). "On Nontraditional Journalism and International Scrutiny. An interview with Amalia Perez". The Brown Journal of World Affairs. 22 (2): 85–89. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  11. ↑ Hockstader, Lee (2016). "On Nontraditional Journalism and International Scrutiny. An interview with Amalia Perez". The Brown Journal of World Affairs. 22 (2): 88. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  12. ↑ "Two Cars Burned Outside Washington Post Bureau". Washington Post. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  13. ↑ "Lee Hockstader". washingtonpost.com. Washington Post. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  14. ↑ "From the May/June 2004 Issue". Brown Alumni Magazine, Class of 1981. Brown University. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  15. ↑ "Lee Hockstader". washingtonpost.com. Washington Post. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  16. ↑ "Dangerous dialogue: attacks on freedom of expression in Miami's Cuban exile community" (PDF). hrw.org. Americas Watch. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  17. ↑ Brown, Archie. "Memorandum submitted by Professor Archie Brown, St Antony's College, to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Commons". publications.parliament.uk. UK Parliament. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  18. ↑ Bivens, Matt; Bernstein, Jonas (September 22, 1998). "The Russia you never met" (PDF). Demokratizatsiya: the journal of post-Soviet democratization. 6: 647. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  19. ↑ "Bob Edwards talks with Washington Post reporter Lee Hockstader". npr.org. NPR. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  20. ↑ Giacomelli, Giorgio. "Question of the violation of human rights in the occupied Arab territories, including Palestine". un.org. United Nations. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  21. ↑ "Middle East update". npr.org. NPR. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  22. ↑ Freedman, Robert O. "The Bush administration and the Arab-Israeli conflict: the record of the first three years". jcpa.org. Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  23. ↑ "Congressional Record -- Senate" (PDF). govinfo.gov. United States Congress. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  24. ↑ "Congressional Record -- Senate" (PDF). govinfo.gov. United States Congress. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  25. ↑ "American election panel discussion". americanclubparis.org. American Club of Paris. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  26. ↑ "Navigating uncertainty: the transatlantic implications of the upcoming U.S. presidential elections". ien.es. Fundacio Institut d'Estudis Nord-americans. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  27. ↑ "Shifting power: the emerging Trump cabinet and implications for U.S. global engagement". csd.eu. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  28. ↑ Chomsky, Noam (1993). Year 501. Boston: South End Press. pp. 8–9, chapter 8. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  29. ↑ Chomsky, Noam. "The victors". chomsky.info. Z Magazine. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  30. ↑ McAllester, Matt (2011). Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 9–20. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  31. ↑ Mortimer, Gavin. "Donald Trump's style of politics originated in Europe". spectator.co.uk. The Spectator. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  32. ↑ Feld, Lowell. "Washington Post's Lee Hockstader hits rock bottom in his 'endorsement' of right-wing political operative Barbara Comstock". bluevirginia.us. Blue Virginia. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  33. ↑ Levin, Andrea. "Washington Post's Lee Hockstader pushes Palestinian case". camera.org. Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  34. ↑ Naureckas, Jim. "WashPost's hot air on Haiti's 'fresh, vital force'". fair.org. Fair & Accuracy in Reporting. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  35. ↑ "Announcing the 2015 Sigma Delta Chi Award winners". Society of Professional Journalists. April 22, 2016.
  36. ↑ "2021 Pulitzer prizes". pulitzer.org. Columbia University. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  37. ↑ "Lee Hockstader". washingtonpost.com. Washington Post. Retrieved 15 February 2025.

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