Trudy Rubin, the foreign affairs columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer and a member of its editorial board, has been able to survive and thrive in the current media environment – even though newspapers and networks have made deep cuts in their coverage of international news due to financial pressures. Her twice-weekly column, “Worldview,” appears in newspapers throughout the country. A specialist on the Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe, she frequently appears on Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio stations to comment on breaking news in those regions.

She has 30 years of experience in covering the Middle East, including six years stationed in Jerusalem and Beirut as a foreign correspondent. Her interest in that region was first sparked by Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, one of her professors at Smith.

Her work is based on firsthand reporting, even when it involves substantial personal risk. She travels, she meets people, and she experiences what she writes about. In 2009 she made two trips to Afgahnistan and Pakistan; in the past several years she has also visited Iran, Jordan, India, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, South Africa, China, Nigeria, Central Asia, Georgia and provincial Russia. From 2003-2008 she has made ten trips to Iraq, where she has close contacts with Iraqi officials, clerics and ordinary people. She maintains a vast network of sources in the U.S. government; Sunni, Kurdish and Shiite circles; and the embassies of the world.

Trudy excels at educating the public by incorporating her deep knowledge about the history, philosophy and anthropology of a society into her clear, objective articles. Over the years, she has been a consistent voice for women’s rights worldwide and the value of a free press.

She was a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for her analytical commentary on the Middle East, specifically Israel and the Palestinians. In 2004 she published Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq, a collection of her columns. In 2008, she received the Edward Weintal Award for International Reporting.

Trudy Rubin is an inspiration to young journalists the world over. She has put a respected, trusted face on American journalism in many lands – often in places where those two words would be met with suspicion.

She and her husband, Paul Hogan, (manager of a longtime Philadephia institution, Robin’s Bookstore) live in Center City Philadelphia.