Dexter Price Filkins (born May 24, 1961) is an American journalist known primarily for his coverage of the wars in
Iraq and
Afghanistan for The New York Times. He was a finalist for a
Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for his dispatches from Afghanistan, and won a Pulitzer in 2009 as part of a team of Times reporters for their dispatches from
Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has been called "the premier
combat journalist of his generation".[1] He currently writes for The New Yorker.
Before joining the Times in September 2000, Filkins was New Delhi bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times for three years. He reported from The New York Times'Baghdad bureau in Iraq from 2003 to 2006.
Filkins has received two
George Polk Awards, given annually by
Long Island University to honor contributions to journalistic integrity and investigative reporting. He was cited for his reports from the
assault on Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004, when the
Marine company he travelled with lost a quarter of its men in eight days.[11] In 2011, Filkins and The New York Times colleague
Mark Mazzetti won for their reporting on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Filkins has won two
National Magazine Awards; in 2009, for his story, "Right At the Edge," and in 2011 for "Bedrooms of the Fallen," an essay with the photographer
Ashley Gilbertson. Both appeared in the New York Times Magazine.
Filkins' article "Right at the Edge" (September 7, 2008) was part of the body of work by the staff of The New York Times awarded the 2009
Pulitzer Prize for distinguished reporting on international affairs.[12]
In 2010, his reporting for The New York Times from Iraq and Afghanistan, alongside the work of photographer
Tyler Hicks and reporter
C. J. Chivers, was selected by
New York University as one of the "Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade".[13]