Inquirer’s Trudy Rubin awarded prestigious honor for foreign affairs columns
The first-ever Flora Lewis Award for commentary went to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Trudy Rubin, who has been on staff since 1983.
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Trudy Rubin, Worldview columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, has been awarded the Flora Lewis award for commentary from the Overseas Press Club.
The Overseas Press Club has been in existence for 80 years and honors journalists who, in its words, “dedicate, risk, and even lose their lives covering the world.” The Flora Lewis award is named for the pioneering journalist who was a longtime foreign correspondent for the New York Times and Newsday. She was the first woman columnist on the New York Times oped page and its first female foreign affairs columnist, based in Paris. The award has special meaning for Rubin, who considers Lewis an idol.
The award recognizes a series of columns Rubin wrote last year centered on the stresses endured by democracies around the world.
According to the judges, “Anyone who reads her regularly cannot help but have a clear and thoughtful understanding of the wider world.”
Rubin, who joined The Inquirer in 1983, has special expertise on the Middle East and travels abroad frequently. In recent years, she has reported from Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan as well as from E.U. countries affected by terrorism and refugee flows.
In 2017 and 2001, Rubin was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary. In 2010, she received the Arthur Ross award for international commentary from the American Academy of Diplomacy. In 2008, she won the Edward Weintal prize for international reporting.
She is the author of Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq.