Los Angeles Times Foreign Bureaus
Click on a location for stories or information about Times bureaus and correspondents.
Tina Susman, Bureau Chief
Tina Susman joined the Times in January, 2007, after more than 15 years as a foreign and national correspondent with the Associated Press and Newsday. She covered sub-Saharan Africa from 1990-2001, including the end of apartheid in South Africa and the genocide in Rwanda. From 2001-2006, she was a national and international correspondent for Newsday. Her work has been recognized with awards from the Overseas Press Club, the National Association of Black Journalists and others. Susman was an intern at the Times while attending San Diego State University. She grew up in Oakland.
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Ned Parker, Correspondent
Ned Parker has reported for the Times in Baghdad since
March. He was the chief Baghdad correspondent for The Times of London
from 2006-2007. He was previously based in Iraq from
2003-2005 as a reporter for the Agence France-Presse.
Parker has filed extensively from the Gaza Strip. His first newspaper
job was in 1999 with The Peninsula newspaper in Qatar. Parker shared
the 2006 Narrative Prize from Narrative Magazine for a new or
emerging writer for two essays on Iraq.
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Alexandra Zavis, Correspondent
Alexandra Zavis joined the Times in August 2006 from the Associated Press South Africa bureau. She has worked overseas for more than a decade, reporting in 25 countries, including Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq. She covered the end of apartheid in South Africa, and numerous wars and coups in the rest of the continent. She also reported from Afghanistan and covered the invasion of Iraq. She also did a brief stint on AP's International Desk in New York and worked in Chicago for a year -- somewhat foreign postings for her, since she grew up abroad. She arrived at the Times Baghdad bureau in October.
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Mark Magnier, Bureau Chief
Mark Magnier joined the Times in 1998 as Tokyo correspondent before being posted to Beijing in 2003. He has also done crisis reporting in Iraq, Israel and the West Bank, East Timor, Kashmir and Sri Lanka, where he ended up camping in nunneries and sleeping in goat sheds. Before joining the Times, he worked at the Journal of Commerce as a correspondent in Japan and Singapore and as the paper’s foreign editor and editorial director in New York. He is a graduate of Columbia College and attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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Ching-Ching Ni, Correspondent
Ching-Ching Ni joined the Times foreign desk as Shanghai Bureau Chief in 2000 and moved to the Beijing bureau in 2003. Before coming to the Times, she was a reporter at Newsday in New York. She was born in Beijing and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. She graduated from Oberlin College and holds a joint masters degree from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the School of International and Public Affairs.
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Borzou Daragahi, Bureau Chief
Borzou Daragahi previously served as bureau chief in
Baghdad where he led the team that won a 2006 Overseas Press Club award and
was recognized as a 2007 Pulitzer Prize finalist in international reporting. Before joining the Times in 2005, he covered war, politics, culture and
commerce in the Middle East for various print and broadcast outlets. He was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist in
international reporting for his coverage of Iraq. He graduated with honors from Columbia University's Graduate School of
Journalism and received an undergraduate degree from the Eugene Lang College
of the New School for Social Research. Born in Iran, he grew up in the
Chicago area and New York City. He speaks Farsi, Spanish and German.
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Chris Kraul, Bureau Chief
Chris Kraul is a Berkeley native who graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in journalism. Prior to joining the Times in 1987, he worked for numerous newspapers including the San Jose Mercury News and the San Diego Union. He also contributed to Barron's and was a freelance news photgographer. He started at the Times as the business editor of the San Diego edition, then covered Mexican and Latin American business and economic stories from San Diego before moving to the Mexico City bureau in 2001. He has done several stints covering Iraq and reopened the Times Bogota bureau in 2006. His beat includes Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama.
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Patrick J. McDonnell, Bureau Chief
Patrick J. McDonnell has covered elections from Chile to Bolivia to Brazil, roamed Patagonia and examined the legacy of dictatorship in Argentina. As the Baghdad bureau chief, he covered the capture of Saddam Hussein, walked with the Marines into Falluja, and was on the streets of Baghdad for the country's first post-invasion election. Before Iraq, he covered the U.S.-Mexico border and immigration issues in California. He came to The Times from the Dallas Times Herald. McDonnell was an 1999-2000 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and graduated from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He began as a copy boy at the New York Daily News. McDonnell is native of the Bronx, N.Y.
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Jeffrey Fleishman, Bureau Chief
Jeffrey Fleishman joined the Times in 2002 as Berlin bureau chief. He has covered wars in Kosovo and Iraq and has traveled extensively through Europe and the Middle East. He is a former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and was a 1997 Pulitzer Prize finalist for a story he wrote accompanying 15 Buddhist monks and nuns on their escape trek across the Himalayas and out of Tibet. Before joining the Times, he was a European correspondent based in Rome for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He moved to Cairo in summer 2007.
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Carol J. Williams, Bureau Chief
Born in Rhode Island, Carol J. Williams graduated from high school on Guam, then earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington. During a decade with the Associated Press, she served writing and editing stints in Seattle, New York, Moscow and Bonn, before joining the Times foreign staff in 1990. She has been Times bureau chief in Budapest, Vienna, Moscow, Berlin and the Caribbean, and has participated in covering the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as well as terrorism-related stories throughout the world. She has won Overseas Press Club awards in 1988, 1991, 1997 and 2006, two Sigma Delta Chi citations and was a 1993 Pulitzer finalist for international reporting.
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Paul Watson, Bureau Chief
Paul Watson took up the Jakarta post at the end of 2006 after almost six years as South Asia bureau chief, based in New Delhi. Before that, he covered the Balkans from the Vienna bureau. Born in Toronto, Watson came to the Times from The Toronto Star, where he was based in Hong Kong and Johannesburg. Watson has received the Pulitzer Prize, the George Polk Award as well as the Robert Capa Gold Medal and Hal Boyle Award for international reporting from the Overseas Press Club of America, and three Canadian National Newspaper Awards. He also holds a master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University.
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Richard Boudreaux, Bureau Chief
Richard Boudreaux, an international correspondent for the past three decades, joined the Times in 1986 as bureau chief in Managua after 16 years with the Associated Press. He held the same post in Moscow, Rome, Mexico City and Baghdad before moving to Jerusalem in 2006. He has covered six wars and written for the Times from more than 50 countries. He was on Times reporting teams that won awards from the Overseas Press Club and the Inter-American Press Association, and he received the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for journalism advancing inter-American understanding. He has an undergraduate degree from Northwestern and a master’s from Columbia.
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Robyn Dixon, Bureau Chief
Robyn Dixon, who covers West and Southern Africa, has also reported from Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia and other parts of the former USSR, Afghanistan and Iraq. She spent 10 years in Moscow, traveling extensively to Ukraine, Georgia, Tajikistan and across Russia. She started as a cub reporter in her home city of Melbourne. After doing every conceivable job, from writing a daily TV column to covering national politics in Canberra, she went to Moscow for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, sister papers of the Fairfax group in Australia. In 1999 Dixon shifted to the Times Moscow bureau. In 2003, she moved to Johannesburg.
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Kim Murphy, Bureau Chief
Kim Murphy is the Times’ London bureau chief, responsible for coverage of the United Kingdom, with occasional reporting stints in Iran. A veteran of the Times since 1983, Murphy has covered assignments in the Middle East, Russia, Central Asia, Northern Africa, the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. She became Cairo bureau chief in 1989, did a stint in the Pacific Northwest, and took over the Moscow bureau in 2003. She began her assignment in London in 2006. Reared in Southern California, Murphy worked at newspapers in Orange County, North Dakota and Mississippi before joining the Times. She holds the Pulitzer and Sigma Delta Chi awards for international reporting.
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Héctor Tobar, Bureau Chief
Héctor Tobar, whose responsibility extends to Mexico and Central America, has worked for the paper's metro, national and foreign desks. He was the Times' national correspondent for Latino affairs and later concentrated on issues of culture and ethnicity. In 2001, he joined the paper's foreign staff as Buenos Aires bureau chief. In 2005 he won the Inter-American Press Association Award for feature writing for his coverage of South America's troubled democracies. Since coming to Mexico, Héctor has covered Mexico's 2006 election drama, along with elections in Nicaragua and the impact of the drug-trafficking on the region's democracies. He is a native of Los Angeles.
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Marla Dickerson, Correspondent
Marla Dickerson is an economics and business writer based in Mexico City. She joined the Times in 1996 after working at the Detroit News and the Rochester Times-Union in upstate New York. She grew up in Illinois and earned a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Illinois and a master's in journalism from Northwestern University. Dickerson and Times colleague Evelyn Iritani in 2002 won the Malcolm Forbes Award for best business reporting from the Overseas Press Club of America for their series: "China: A Giant Awakes." She is married to Times correspondent Reed Johnson.
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Ken Ellingwood, Correspondent
Ken Ellingwood, a Times staff writer since 1992, is based in Mexico City, with responsibility for covering Mexico and Central America. He was previously based in Jerusalem and covered Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He also reported from Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. Before joining the foreign staff in 2003, Ellingwood was the newspaper's bureau chief in Atlanta, where he covered a six-state swath of the American South. From 1998 to 2002, Ellingwood covered the U.S.-Mexico border, based in San Diego, and is the author of "Hard Line: Life and Death on the U.S.-Mexico Border." He earlier held a number of local beats, from the San Gabriel Valley to police and courts in Orange County, while on the Times staff in southern California.
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Reed Johnson, Correspondent
Reed Johnson is the The Times' Latin American arts and culture correspondent. Based in Mexico City, he covers Mexico and Central and South America, with a particular emphasis on cultural connections between California and the rest of the hemisphere. He joined The Times as a feature writer in the Calendar section in 2000. Previously he was a theater critic and arts writer at the Rochester (NY) Times-Union, the Detroit News and the L.A. Daily News. An upstate New York native, he received a Bachelor's in history and English from Washington University in St. Louis and a Master's in American Studies from the University of Sussex, England. He is married to Times correspondent Marla Dickerson.
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Megan K. Stack, Bureau Chief
Megan Stack has covered the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, as well as the Palestinian intifada. She joined the Times' national desk in 2001 as Houston bureau chief. She was posted to Jerusalem in 2003 and, later that year, was named Cairo bureau chief. In 2007, with her colleagues in the Baghdad bureau, she was named a Pulitzer finalist for Iraq coverage and won an Overseas Press Club award. A native of Glastonbury, CT, Stack studied Spanish literature at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and graduated from George Washington University in 1998. She worked as a reporter for the El Paso Times and covered Texas and the Mexican border for the Associated Press.
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Edmund Sanders, Bureau Chief
Edmund Sanders became Nairobi Bureau Chief in May 2005, responsible for covering East and Central Africa. His current focus includes Somalia, Darfur and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Previously he worked as Baghdad correspondent from 2003 to 2005. Before joining the Foreign staff he was posted in Washington D.C., where he covered entertainment policy, privacy and the anthrax attacks.
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Henry Chu, Bureau Chief
Henry Chu joined the Times in 1990 and worked primarily out of the San Fernando Valley office before moving to the foreign staff in 1998. He served as bureau chief in Beijing from 1998 to 2003 and then in Rio de Janeiro from 2004 to 2005. His present posting in India began last year. He was born in Indianapolis but grew up in Southern California and received his B.A. from Harvard University. His most exotic assignment so far has been a week spent along the Ohio-Kentucky border.
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Laura King, Correspondent
Laura King's area of coverage is Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey. She joined the Times in 2002 as bureau chief in Jerusalem. Prior to that, she worked for the Associated Press with postings including Washington, Tokyo and London. She has covered conflicts in the Balkans, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in addition to East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Sebastian Rotella, Bureau Chief
Sebastian Rotella, who starting this summer will be an international investigative correspondent based in Paris, has served as bureau chief in Paris and Buenos Aires and also covered the U.S.-Mexico border and several beats in Southern California. His awards include being named finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in foreign reporting in 2006; the Maria Moors Cabot Prize of the Columbia University School of Journalism for career coverage of Latin America; and awards from the German Marshall Fund, the Overseas Press Club, Inter-American Press Assn. and other organizations. He is the author of the book Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border.
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Tracy Wilkinson, Bureau Chief
Tracy Wilkinson has covered wars, crises and daily life on three continents. Her career began with United Press International where she covered the Contra war in Nicaragua. She moved to the Times in 1987 first as a writer on the metro staff, then as a foreign correspondent based in San Salvador. In 1995, she moved to Vienna, where she covered the war in the Balkans, winning the George Polk Award in 1999 , and then to Jerusalem. She now directs coverage of Italy, the Vatican, Spain, Turkey, Greece and the Balkans. She earned her B.A. in English literature from Vanderbilt University and recently published her book: "The Vatican's Exorcists: Driving out the Devil in the 21st Century."
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Don Lee, Bureau Chief
Don Lee has been based in Shanghai since 2004, focusing on economics and business in China. Born in Seoul, Don studied philosophy at the University of Chicago and obtained a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. He joined the Times in 1992 after several years as a reporter at the Kansas City Star. During his years at the Times, he has held a variety of reporting and editing positions, including business editor in Orange County. He lives in Shanghai with his wife, Hyun, and their three children.
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Bruce Wallace, Bureau Chief
Bruce Wallace is based in Tokyo and covers Japan and Korea. He has also done crisis reporting from Iraq, Lebanon and southeast Asia. Wallace joined the Times in 2004 after spending eight years as a foreign correspondent based in London for Canada's Maclean's magazine and the CanWest national newspaper chain. During that time he reported from across Europe, Africa and the Middle East on stories ranging from the Balkan wars to the collapse of the Oslo peace process in Israel. Born in Montreal, he holds a bachelor's degree in American history.
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Maggie Farley, Bureau Chief
Maggie Farley covers the United Nations and Canada. After joining the Times in 1995, she opened the paper’s Hong Kong and Shanghai bureaus, reporting on Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to China and the Asian economic crisis. She moved to New York in 1999 to cover the United Nations and Canada, and reported on the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and their aftermath. She won the UN Correspondents’ Association Gold Medal for her part in following the UN inspectors’ search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Farley studied East Asian Studies at Brown University and received her graduate degree at Harvard University.
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