Foreign Affairs Columnist Will Give Nieman Lecture

Thomas Friedman, foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, will present a public lecture sponsored by the Nieman Foundation on Tuesday, Feb. 13. A two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Middle East, Friedman will speak on "The Best Stories about the Police Department Always Come from the Fire Department and Other Tales from a Journalist's Life."

The lecture is an annual Nieman Foundation event to honor Joe Alex Morris Jr., a Harvard graduate and Los Angeles Times correspondent who was killed in Teheran in 1979 while covering the Iranian revolution. The lecture will be held at 5 p.m. at the Sackler Museum auditorium.

A native of Minneapolis and a graduate of Brandeis University, Friedman studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and American University in Cairo. He received a master's degree in modern Middle East studies from Oxford University before joining the United Press International as a correspondent in London and Beirut.

Friedman joined The New York Times staff in May 1981 and a year later returned as its correspondent to Beirut. He was transferred to the Israel Bureau in 1984. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his 1983 coverage from Lebanon and a rare second award in 1988 for his work in Israel. He was awarded Guggenheim Fellowship in 1988 that enabled him to write a book of his reflections on the Middle East, From Beirut to Jerusalem, which won the 1989 National Book Award for nonfiction and Overseas Press Club Award as best book on foreign policy.

Since joining the Times' Washington bureau in 1989 he has worked as chief diplomatic correspondent, chief White House correspondent, and international economics correspondent. He became foreign affairs columnist for the Times in January 1995. Friedman lives in Bethesda, Md., with his wife Ann and daughters Orly and Natalie. He is a member of the board of trustees of Brandeis University and the advisory board of the Marshall Scholarship Commission. He has received honorary degrees from Brandeis and Macalester, Haverford, and Hebrew Union colleges.

Previous lecturers in this series include James Wooten, Peter Jennings, Flora Lewis, Eric Sevareid, Peter Arnett, and Harrison Salisbury.