Murphy, Kim 1955–

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Murphy, Kim 1955–

PERSONAL: Born August 26, 1955, in Indianapolis, IN; married; children: two. Education: Minot State University, B.A. (magna cum laude), 1977.

ADDRESSES: Office—Los Angeles Times, 145 S. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012.

CAREER: Journalist. North Biloxian, Biloxi, MS, assistant editor, 1973–74; Minot Daily News, Minot, ND, reporter, 1978–80; Orange County Register, Santa Ana, CA, reporter, 1980–83, assistant metro editor, 1982–83; Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, 1983–, began as a general assignment reporter for Orange County edition, became Moscow bureau chief.

AWARDS, HONORS: North Dakota Press Women Award, 1979, for best news story; North Dakota Sigma Delta Chi Award, 1979, for best news story; Orange County Press Club Awards, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984; Orange County Press Club Watchdog Award, 1985; Los Angeles Times Publisher's Prize, 1990, for Persian Gulf War correspondence; Los Angeles Times Editorial Award (with others), 1991, for article on the Persian Gulf War titled "Witness to War"; Sigma Delta Chi, Society of Professional Journalists, 1993, for foreign correspondence; Pulitzer Prize, 2005, for international reporting.

WRITINGS:

Author of articles for Los Angeles Times and other newspapers.

SIDELIGHTS: Kim Murphy is a journalist who won a 2005 Pulitzer prize for her international news coverage of various stories in Russia in 2004. According to the Pulitzer Prize Web site, Murphy was honored "for her eloquent, wide ranging coverage of Russia's struggle to cope with terrorism, improve the economy and make democracy work." In a Los Angeles Times article, James Rainey posits that "Murphy's international reporting prize came mostly from solitary work in dangerous places."

Murphy's award-winning reporting covers a wide range of diverse topics, including stories about Chechnyan suicide bombers, Russian jazz clubs, oil boomtowns, politics, individual profiles, Russia looking to gain more influence in its former republics, and the Russian school hostage crisis that left many children dead. In one of her reports on the aftermath of the crisis, Murphy explains how a mother had to make an agreement with the hostage takers to leave behind one of her children, a six year old, in order to take herself and her two-year-old to freedom. In the story, Murphy delves into the mother's psyche as she experiences both relief and guilt, even though her eldest child survived. In another story, the author talks with a man who lost a child in the siege and is trying to cope. "She is so incredibly dogged and so good at what she does and has what I always think of as news in her blood," Marjorie Miller, the foreign editor of the Los Angeles Times, was quoted as saying by Rainey.