Nora Boustany

Nora Naaman Boustany is a Lebanese-American journalist and educator known for her coverage of the Middle East and human rights issues.

Boustany worked for United Press International in Lebanon for two years following her graduate school education. She had trouble getting a job in journalism initially in the 1970s because, as she was told by editors, she didn't have any experience and "they didn’t hire women." She created a role for herself being a local expert, assisting well-known American and British correspondents who were in Beirut on short-term assignments. She was a correspondent in Algeria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran, speaking four languages: English; Arabic; French; and German. She wrote a column, Diplomatic Dispatches, about Washington's diplomatic community, that was published twice weekly.

She won the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting in 1987 for her coverage of the plight of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. In 1992, she received a Distinguished Service award from the University of Wisconsin at Madison's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She left the Washington Post in 2008 after a nearly 30-year career, taking an early retirement package when the Post cut its staffing by 10%.

She was a Writer-in-Residence Fellow for the year 2009-2010 at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

Early life and education Boustany grew up in Beirut and has a twin sister and a brother.