Roger Cohen - Journalism Career

Journalism Career

In 1983, Cohen joined The Wall Street Journal in Rome to cover the Italian economy. The Journal later transferred him to Beirut. He joined The New York Times in January 1990. In the summer of 1991, he co-authored with Claudio Gatti In the Eye of the Storm: The Life of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. The authors wrote the books based on information from Norman Schwarzkopf's sister Sally, without Schwarzkopf's help.

Cohen worked for The New York Times as its European economic correspondent, based in Paris, from January 1992 to April 1994. He then became the paper's Balkan bureau chief, based in Zagreb, from April 1994 to June 1995. He covered the Bosnian War and the related Bosnian Genocide. His exposé of a Serb-run Bosnian concentration camp won the Burger Human Rights Award from the Overseas Press Club of America.

He wrote a retrospective book about his Balkan experiences called Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo in 1998. It won a Citation for Excellence from the Overseas Press Club in 1999. Cohen wrote in Hearts Grown Brutal that his coverage of the war changed him as a person, and that he considers himself lucky to still be alive. He later called this period the proudest achievement in his entire journalistic career.

He returned to the paper's Paris bureau from June 1995 to August 1998. He served as bureau chief of the Berlin bureau after September 1998. He took over as foreign editor of the paper's American office in the direct aftermath of the September 11 attacks. His unofficial role was made formal on March 14, 2002. In his tenure, he planned and then oversaw the paper's coverage of the War in Afghanistan. During his first visit to India as an editor, he entered the country without obtaining a visa, having assumed that he would not need one. He was then stuck in diplomatic limbo for several hours. He has called this the stupidest thing he has ever done in his career.

In 2004, he began writing a column called 'Globalist', which is published twice a week in The International Herald Tribune. In 2005, he wrote his third book, Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis' Final Gamble, and he published it through Alfred A. Knopf. In 2006, he became the first senior editor for The International Herald Tribune.

After columnist Nicholas D. Kristof took a temporary leave in mid-2006, Cohen took over Kristof's position. He has written columns for the Times since then. On April 28, 2009, Cohen wrote an open letter to Mondoweiss, the blog created by Philip Weiss, clarifying that "I've never had a permanent place in NYT paper. My deal is in IHT (paper) and online; in NYT online with same display as other columnists; and in NYT paper intermittently when schedules permit."