Mary Jordan

Washington Post

National Correspondent

Mary Jordan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author who writes for the Washington Post. She spent 14 years abroad as a foreign correspondent running the Washington Post bureaus in Tokyo, Mexico City and London. She has written from more than 40 countries, covering subjects ranging from the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s to religious freedom in Albania. She and her husband and colleague, Kevin Sullivan, won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for their investigation of the Mexican justice system. Jordan was also a 2009 Pulitzer Prize finalist for a series of stories about problems facing women around the world.

Jordan and Sullivan wrote “The Prison Angel,” a biography of an extraordinary woman who helps the destitute in Mexican prisons, which won a 2006 Christopher Award for work that “affirms the highest values of the human spirit.” They also wrote “Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland,” which was a No. 1 New York Times best-seller in 2015.

Jordan graduated from Georgetown and earned a master's degree at Columbia University’s School of Journalism. She has taught at Georgetown as an adjunct professor in the English Department and she was awarded a Nieman Fellowship to study at Harvard, the youngest one to win the prestigious honor.

She has also spent a post-graduate year studying Latin American affairs at Stanford University.

When she returned to the United States from her foreign assignments, she was the founding editor of Washington Post Live, a forum for debates and discussions in front of a live audience. She currently interviews some of the world’s leading figures – from legendary singer Julie Andrews to former President Jimmy Carter -- for the popular “What it Takes” podcast of the nonprofit Academy of Achievement.

In 2016, the Washington Post honored Jordan with the Washington Post’s highest award, the Eugene Meyer Award for distinguished service. It is given to the person who exemplifies the core principles: tell the truth for the public good and always be fair.

Jordan was raised in Cleveland, the daughter of Irish immigrants.

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