C J Chivers

Christopher John Chivers (born 1964) is an American journalist and author best known for his work with The New York Times. He is currently assigned to The New York Times Magazine and the newspaper's Investigations Desk as a long-form writer and investigative reporter. In the summer of 2007, he was named the newspaper's Moscow bureau chief, replacing Steven Lee Myers. Along with several reporters and photographers based in Pakistan and Afghanistan, he contributed to a New York Times staff entry that received the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2009. He later received the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2017. His book, The Gun, a work of history published under the Simon & Schuster imprint, was released in October, 2010.

Contents

• Characterization Juxtaposition in War Journalism
• Hollywood and the Artists Gaze on Vets
• 1997
• 2002
• 2004
• 2007
• 2009
• 2017
• Books
• Personal
• References

Chivers attended the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University. At Cornell, Chivers played Defensive Line for Sprint Football all four years, and was a member of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. After graduating in 1987, Chivers served as an infantry officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. He graduated from the United States Army's Ranger School, served in the first Gulf War and in peacekeeping operations during the Los Angeles riots in 1992 before being honorably discharged as a captain in 1994.

Following graduation from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism a year later, Chivers reported for the Providence Journal on the Providence city government from 1995 to 1999.

For the Times, Chivers covered the New York Police Department from 1999 to 2001, when he became a foreign correspondent. He has reported from Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq and all of the former Soviet nations. In Russia he has covered Chechnya and Beslan. In Uzbekistan, he covered the Andijan massacre in 2005.

In 2010 his work in The Times from Afghanistan and Iraq, with that of the reporter Dexter Filkins and the photographer Tyler Hicks, was recognized by New York University as one of the Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade. As in those conflicts, the improvised weapons and munitions of Sunni Islamists was an important focus of his reporting on Libya in 2011 and on Syria in 2012.

In 2013 Chivers published an article in the New York Times about the ordeal of Matt Schrier as hostage in the hands of Syrian rebels while Schrier's cellmate Peter Theo Curtis still was held captive. Chivers disclosed that Curtis had helped Schrier escape, putting Curtis in jeopardy and delivering him to abuse by his kidnappers.