PBS NewsHour’s Afghanistan Coverage Named Recipient of the OPC Peter Jennings Award

Arlington, VA (March 18, 2022)—The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) today announced PBS NewsHour special correspondent Jane Ferguson and the nightly news broadcast’s foreign affairs team have been awarded the Peter Jennings Award for extensive coverage of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s takeover of the country. The OPC announcement said about NewsHour’s coverage of Afghanistan, “In years to come, students of history will be able to look back at these PBS NewsHour’s segments from Afghanistan by Jane Ferguson and team to understand what happened in the final year of America’s longest war. Throughout 2021, as most Americans’ attention had turned away, the team returned again and again to capture the final arc of the story.”

With support from the Pulitzer Center, Ferguson and the NewsHour team traveled to Afghanistan four times in 2021 to cover the complicated challenges of leaving America’s longest ever war, the Taliban’s takeover, and the humanitarian consequences of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. NewsHour’s coverage of Afghanistan displayed a relentless dedication to the story of what was happening in the country and a consistent focus on the human impact of the crisis there.

“Jane Ferguson’s riveting reporting during these horrible days in Afghanistan was made possible by her equal supply of immense courage and empathetic humanity. Jane, producer Eric O’Connor and the team on the ground, along with the great NewsHour team back in DC, worked around the clock to ensure that these reports reflected the reality of the lives being impacted,” said NewsHour’s senior executive producer Sara Just.

The Peter Jennings Award, as well as the other OPC awards, will be presented at OPC’s annual awards event on April 21, 2022.

Credits: special correspondent Jane Ferguson; executive producer Sara Just; senior foreign affairs producer Morgan Till; videographer and producer Emily Kassie; field producer Naseer Raheen; field producer Aleem Agha; producer Ali Latifi; videographer and editor Eric O’Connor; videographer and editor Zach Fannin, field producer Ahmed Mengli; producer Layla Quran.

Press Contact: Ella Richardson, Publicist, ERichardson@newshour.org