David Ignatius
Journalist & Writer, USA
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has had a distinguished and wide-ranging career in the news business, serving at various times as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and columnist. He has written widely for many renowned magazines and published six novels.
His books have been translated into a dozen languages and the film rights for three of his novels have been bought by Hollywood movie production companies, including A Firing Offense, Body of Lies and The Increment. Body of Lies was made into a 2008 movie by Warner Bros, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, and directed by Ridley Scott.
Mr Ignatius gained worldwide recognition for his twice-weekly column on global politics, economics and international affairs, which has been published in The Washington Post since January 1999. His column was distributed to more than 600 newspapers worldwide. His column won the 2000 Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary and a 2004 Edward Weintal Prize.
He is also co-moderator of PostGlobal, which links more than 50 of the top journalists and commentators around the world in a continuous online discussion of important issues.
In addition to his reporting work, Mr. Ignatius has held a number of senior editing positions including as executive editor of the Paris-based International Herald Tribune; The Washington Post’s assistant managing editor (business news); the Post’s foreign editor, supervising the paper´s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; and editor of the Post’s Outlook section, a Sunday opinion section that covers politics, economics, foreign policy and intellectual trends.
During his journalism career, he has covered almost every Washington round, from the Pentagon to the CIA to Capitol Hill. His reporting and his commentary draw on his network of resources to uncover and break news. Before joining the Washington Post in 1986, Mr. Ignatius spent 10 years as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. While there he became the paper´s Middle East correspondent, covering wars in Lebanon and Iraq. He later became the Journal´s chief diplomatic correspondent. He received the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting in 1985. Before joining the Wall Street Journal he was an editor at The Washington Monthly.
He studies at Harvard College, where he graduated magna cum laude and received a Frank Knox Fellowship from Harvard and studied at King´s College, Cambridge University, where he received a diploma in economics.
