Egyptian Journalists Maggie Michael & Nariman El-Mofty Win Pulitzer For Yemen Civil War Coverage

CAIRO – 18 April 2019: Egyptian Investigative Journalist Maggie Michael, Egyptian photojournalist Nariman El-Mofty, and Yemeni video journalist Maad Al-Zikry, won a Pulitzer in international reporting, U.S. journalism’s highest honor for their coverage of abuses in Yemen’s civil war.


The Pulitzer Prize is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine and online journalism, literature, and musical composition in the United States.


Michael, El Mofty and Al-Zikry all work for the Associated Press, and according to AP, the three of them had spent a year uncovering atrocities and suffering in Yemen.


Michael, who is based in Cairo, has 15 years of experience covering conflicts across the Middle East. She has gained deep knowledge of the political, social, and cultural dynamics of this volatile region. She joined the AP in 2002. She covered political and religious conflict in the Middle East and, as part of AP's investigations team, has written about civilian casualties in Iraq and Yemen. Her primary aim is to produce powerful enterprise stories, and part of her responsibility is to supervise a wide network of Arabic-speaking stringers and reporters across the region.


El-Mofty is a Canadian-Egyptian photojournalist. She worked first as a photo editor, then since 2016 as a photographer covering Egypt, Yemen and other parts of the Middle East.


Al-Zikry is a Yemeni video journalist who has devoted years chronicling the war and its horrors. His photograph of an emaciated infant dying at a hospital in 2016 helped bring world attention to starvation in Yemen.


“We can’t overstate how thankful we are for the Pulitzer Center’s support,” Associated Press Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said. “Yemen is one of the most dangerous places in the world to report on. A grant like this one makes all the difference in terms of allowing us to make extra trips and to provide sustained coverage. It means we can free up journalists like Maggie and Nariman to focus on digging in and doing deeper journalism in a place like Yemen, while we keep our spot news report going across the broader Middle East. Especially in a place like the Middle East, these extra resources are so precious.”

In an interview on CNN's Reliable Sources podcast, El-Mofty offered some wise advice to her fellow journalists: "Work so hard, and don't think of the prizes. You have to love it. You have to be there 100%. Respect people like they're your own. Don't victimize people; personalize the story. And keep going back. You're going to fail a lot, and it's okay. But if you love it, you'll just keep pushing."


This award is considered as a great honor to Egypt, especially that Michael and El-Mofty are the first Egyptians to win the prize.

The Embassy of Egypt in the United States tweet its congrats to Michael and El-Mofty via the embassy’s official twitter account: “Congrats to Maggie Michael and Nariman El-Mofty from Egypt for winning the 2019 @PulitzerPrizes for International Reporting for their extensive coverage of the conflict in Yemen.” #EgyptPride #WomenofEgypt
It is worth mentioning that this isn’t Michael’s first award, in April 2018, she has won the Overseas Press Club (OPC) of America in the contest honoring the best international reporting for her work in Yemen.