John F. Burns

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This article covers the journalist. For other people with the same name see John Burns (disambiguation)


John F. Burns (John Fisher Burns) (born October 4, 1944) is a British journalist, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. He gives international reporting for The New York Times and frequently appears on PBS.

Born in Nottingham, England, his family emigrated to Canada when he was young where he later studied at McGill University. In the early 1970s, Burns wrote for the Canadian (Toronto-based) newspaper Globe and Mail, covering both local stories and later serving as a China correspondent. Burns joined The New York Times in 1975, reporting, at first, for the paper's metropolitan section, and has written ever since for the newspaper in various capacities. He has been assigned to and headed several of the Times foreign bureaus. He along with fellow Times journalists John Darnton and Michael T. Kaufman won the 1978 George Polk Award for foreign reporting for coverage of Africa. Burns was also the Times bureau chief in Moscow from 1981 to 1984.

In 1986, while chief of the Times Beijing bureau, Burns was incarcerated on suspicion of espionage by the Chinese government. Charges were dropped after an investigation, but Burns was subsequently expelled from the country. Burns was awarded the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting citing "his courageous and thorough coverage of the destruction of Sarajevo and the barbarous killings in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina."[1] Some of Burns's reporting in Bosnia and Herzegovina was later put in doubt for using questionable sources (cf. Borislav Herak).[2][3][4]

Burns received his second Pulitzer in 1997, this time "For his courageous and insightful coverage of the harrowing regime imposed on Afghanistan by the Taliban."[5] Burns was based in Baghdad during the lead up to the Iraq war in 2003 and has written extensively on the war and the subsequent occupation. In July 2007, Burns succeeded Alan Cowell as bureau chief in London. On September 30, 2007, Burns received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College.

Burns is a frequent contributor to PBS, including a number of appearances on the Charlie Rose show and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer via satellite from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Burns is married to Jane Scott-Long, who manages the Times Baghdad Bureau.

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