Anne Longworth Garrels, Doctor of Letters
As the Edward R. Murrow of the Iraq War, your firsthand descriptions made real for countless radio listeners the U.S. invasion of Baghdad. One of the few journalists who chose to remain in the city, you risked death on one side and kidnapping on the other in order to breathe life into the first casualty of war, which is truth. By day you roamed the city, listening to soldiers, leaders, and ordinary citizens, and by night strung these story beads into a necklace of reporting by satellite phone to audiences eight thousand miles away. Even when things died down and the television cameras arrived, your descriptions remained among the clearest and most full of insight, grounded as they were in your deep understanding of history and humanity and drawing on your broad experiences reporting over the years from four continents. Baghdad, Chechnya, Kosovo, Tiananmen Square — to all the places we need to be but cannot we send you, confident that you will report back with knowledge, thoroughness, and fairness and prove once again the great power, even from the cacophony of the world and war, of a single, strong voice.
I hereby declare you recipient of the honorary degree Doctor of Letters, entitled to all the rights, honors, and privileges appertaining thereto.
June 7, 2009