Jeffrey Gettleman

Jeffrey Gettleman
Jeffrey Gettleman
Born	July 22, 1971 (age 52); Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Education	Cornell University (AB); University of Oxford (MA)
Occupation	Journalist
Notable credit(s)	The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, St. Petersburg Times, Cherwell
Spouse	Courtenay Morris (m. 2005)

Jeffrey A. Gettleman (born 1971) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Since 2018, he has been the South Asia bureau chief of The New York Times based in New Delhi.^[1] From 2006 to July 2017, he was East Africa bureau chief for The New York Times.^[2]

Early life and education

Jeffrey was born in 1971 in a Jewish family in Chicago.^[3] His father Robert William Gettleman (b. 1943),^[4] was a judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois,^[5] and his mother, Joyce R. Gettleman, was a psychotherapist with a private practice in Evanston.^[6] Gettleman's sister Lynn Gettleman Chehab is a physician.

Gettleman graduated from Evanston Township High School in 1989, and Cornell University in 1994 with a B.A. in Philosophy.^[7] Initially, he did not know what he wanted to do after graduation, so he took a leave of absence to backpack around the world, which he says helped set his life trajectory. However, when a professor suggested journalism as a profession, he scoffed at the notion, saying "That was the dumbest idea I had heard... who wants to work for a boring newspaper?".^[8] Beginning in 1994, he was a communications officer for the Save the Children organization in Addis Ababa.

After his graduation from Cornell, Gettleman received a Marshall Scholarship to attend Oxford University, where he received a master's degree in Philosophy in June 1996. While at Oxford, he was the first American editor of Cherwell, the university's student newspaper.^[9]^[10]

Career

Gettleman began his journalism career as a city hall and police reporter for the St. Petersburg Times from 1997 to 1998. In 1999, he transferred to the Los Angeles Times as a general assignment reporter. He became bureau chief in Atlanta two years later, and was also a war correspondent for the broadsheet in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

In 2002, Gettleman joined The New York Times as a domestic correspondent in Atlanta, where he later became the bureau chief. In 2003, he began reporting from Iraq, and did a total of five tours. After a stint as a reporter for the paper's Metro desk in 2004, he became a foreign correspondent in July 2006 for the Nairobi-based East Africa bureau of The New York Times. In August 2006, he was named bureau chief.^[9]

Gettleman covers over ten countries, often under difficult circumstances. He has focused the majority of his work on events in Congo, Kenya and Tanzania in East-Central Africa, where he has reported on atrocities involving rape, mutilation as well as ritualized murders of albinos, among other issues. His often straightforward, non-cynical approach toward such difficult stories has been colloquially dubbed the "Gettleman method" by Jack Shafer.^[8]^[11]^[12]

Gettleman has also covered conflicts in Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Egypt, and Yemen. In the 2004 spring, he along with photographer Lynsey Addario were abducted for several hours by militants in Fallujah. According to Gettleman, the pair were eventually released because he had successfully posed as Greek and concealed his passport in Addario's trousers, where he had guessed his captors would not search.^[11]

Gettleman also has served as a commentator on CNN, BBC, PBS, NPR and ABC.^[13]

In 2017, Gettleman published a memoir, Love, Africa: A Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival.^[14]

In 2024, Gettleman co-wrote a series of artiles with Anat Schwartz and Adam Sella describing sexual violence during 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.^[15]^[16]^[17]

Following internal discussion at The New York Times, an episode of The Daily podcast featuring Gettleman's reporting was pulled and a new episode was drafted.^[18] The Times responded to criticism of the investigative project, "Screams Without Words," by issuing a statement saying “We remain confident in the accuracy of our reporting and stand by the team’s investigation which was rigorously reported, sourced and edited."^[19]

View on journalism

In a panel at Columbia University, Gettleman addressed his article on sexual violence and argued against the need for reporters to find evidence, saying "What we found — I don’t want to even use the word ‘evidence,’ because evidence is almost like a legal term that suggests you’re trying to prove an allegation or prove a case in court...That’s our job as journalists: to get the information and to share the story in a way that makes people care. Not just to inform, but to move people."^[20]

Personal life

Gettleman is married to Courtenay Morris,^[9] a former assistant public defender who is now a web producer for The New York Times. The couple first met while attending Cornell University. The wedding was held on October 29, 2005 at their home in Hoboken, New Jersey, with Gettleman's father officiating at the ceremony.^[21]

Awards

First place for general reporting by Florida Press Club (1997)
First place for spot news by Tampa Bay Society of Professional Journalists (1997 and 1998)
Los Angeles Times Editorial Award for Breaking News (2001)
Overseas Press Club Award (2003)
Overseas Press Club Award (2008)
George Polk Award for International Reporting (2011)^[22]
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (2012)^[23]