Recently retired Kathy Gannon is an AP icon — she has had an unsurpassed view on the ground in Afghanistan for the past 35 years. So when an editor suggested she write a first-person piece reflecting on her decades of coverage, she stepped up with a vivid and intimate retrospective.
AP bureau chief Kathy Gannon, left, negotiates with Taliban commander Hanifi, second from right, chief of the border post with Pakistan in Torkham, Afghanistan, Oct. 24, 2001. For more than two weeks during the U.S. bombing campaign that followed the Sept. 11 attacks, Gannon and AP photographer Dimitri Messinis were the only Western correspondents in Kabul.
AP Photo / Dimitri Messinis
AP bureau chief Kathy Gannon reports from the basement of the AP house in Kabul, Afghanistan, during a night of heavy bombing, Oct. 26, 2001.
AP Photo / Dimitri Messinis
Special correspondent Kathy Gannon, front left, and veteran AP photographer Anja Niedringhaus, third from right, pose with Pakistani soldiers in a remote border area opposite Afghanistan’s northeastern Kunar province, February 2012. Gannon was seriously wounded and Niedringhaus was killed, April 4, 2014, when an Afghan policeman in eastern Afghanistan suddenly opened fire on the car in which they were sitting.
AP Photo
Associated Press reporter Kathy Gannon answers questions during an interview in New York., Oct. 9, 2014, her first interview after she and AP photographer Anja Niedringhaus were attacked on April 4 by a police officer in Khost Province as the pair covered preparations on the eve of the nation’s presidential election. Niedringhaus was killed in the attack and Gannon is recovering from seven gunshot wounds.
AP Photo / Julie Jacobson
Associated Press journalist Kathy Gannon poses for a photograph in Toronto, Dec. 2, 2014, eight months after the the attack in eastern Afghanistan that seriously wounded Gannon and killed photographer colleague Anja Niedringhaus.
Darren Calabrese / The Canadian Press via AP
The story, full of personal anecdotes, brings Afghanistan's recent history to light, tracking the country’s slow descent into despair. The pacing is such that the piece reads like a narrative, leading with the gripping scene of the 2014 shooting that seriously injured Gannon and killed colleague Anja Niedringhaus, then taking the reader effortlessly through the country’s conflicts and shifting regimes. Like everything she writes, the piece focuses squarely on the people of Afghanistan, weaving in their stories and conveying Gannon’s respect for their kindness and resilience, even as hope fades.
The story scored at the top for reader engagement on the day that it ran, eliciting much response.