Covering Pakistan: War, Flood and Social Issues

Islamabad-based NPR correspondent Julie McCarthy has covered the full spectrum of stories in Pakistan, a complex and conflicted state that defies easy solutions. She brings context, understanding, patience and courage to her writing and reporting, along with a radio voice that commands our full attention. Whether she is covering turmoil in the Swat Valley, a traditional Taliban stronghold now in government hands, the misapplication of Islamic blasphemy statutes to Pakistani women of other faiths, or the murky circumstances of child labor in Pakistan through the mysterious death of a 13-year-old girl, McCarthy brings us the voices involved close-up, and she forces us to spend perilous moments in another place where there are no simple answers. Through her words, we taste the human toil, the agony and the danger, so that we come to know her subjects as individuals, no longer nameless strangers in a crowd. For bringing to western audiences Julie McCarthy’s keen sensibility and passionate understanding of the whirlwind that is Pakistan, Covering Pakistan: War, Flood and Social Issues receives a Peabody Award.