Filkins Jumps to New Yorker

Dexter Filkins, a heavy-duty war correspondent for The New York Times, is heading to The New Yorker, reports Nick Summers in the NY Observer.

"I love the New York Times, and I'm hugely grateful for all they've done for me. I'll miss everyone there very much. The New Yorker has offered me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I'm very excited about it," Mr. Filkins wrote The Observer in an email.

Mr. Filkins, who is in Istanbul today, has been considering the move for two months. Over 10 intense years, he has won numerous awards for his reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other fronts, including the 2005 George Polk Award for his coverage of the battle of Fallujah. Those experiences were memorably chronicled in more personal terms in his 2008 book, "The Forever War."

At The New Yorker, Mr. Filkins won't write exclusively about war—he is expected to weigh in on other topics. To keep Mr. Filkins at the Times, editors there offered him the freedom to write, essentially, whatever he wanted wherever he wanted, whether on the front page or in the Sunday magazine. He has delivered big scoops as recently as two weeks ago—that sensational Taliban impostor story—and his role will be difficult to fill.

"Dex is a huge talent. I've personally written him two Pulitzer nominations," Times executive editor Bill Keller wrote The Observer in an email. "We'll miss him a lot, but I totally understand that after ten years of high-adrenaline, high-risk war reporting, he wants something completely different."

The hire is a coup for David Remnick, who earlier this year persuaded the Times's first choice to edit its Sunday magazine, Daniel Zalewski, to stay at The New Yorker.

Mr. Remnick did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Beast of Baghdad

The Jerusalem press corps notes the departure of a familiar Farrell Beast, specifically Stephen Farrell, former Middle East correspondent for the London Times, who has just joined the New York Times as a veteran reinforcement for their Baghdad bureau. It recently underwent a major overhaul, with Dexter Filkins and John Burns back to civilization of sorts (although with car bombs planted in the UK, Burns' new patch of Londonistan is none too calm.)

This alpha male was famously kidnapped at gunpoint by bandits near Fallujah, then re-kidnapped by Baathist insurgents, interrogated as a suspected CIA spy and released after 8 hours. The kidnappers discovered that both their captives had been based in Israel, and things looked pretty hairy for awhile.

"See, not soldier. Just bald," the shaved-headed Farrell joked to the second lot of gunmen, to convince them there was no threat. Dinner then was served to Farrell and his petite female colleague, freelancer and fluent Arabic speaker Orly Halpern, before they were blindfolded and driven to Baghdad.

Steve manages to keep his head down a bit more these days, but has a great nose for news and a knack for danger.

Well, Farrell is back for more Iraq hi-jinks, full-on. He did not exactly slink away from the Holy Land hotspot. The send-off party at his Jerusalem apartment, for which he donned his ratty Iraq t-shirt, was classic. Sushi was served and the press corps was roasted with "Golden Bollocks" awards for ace blunders. The winner was a strapping Scandinavian hack who, when grilled by agents at the Ben Gurion airport, had managed to leave them sputtering and speechless. "Did you have contact with any Arabs?" they had asked, attempting to assess whether he was a threat to the Nation of Israel. "Well,Arabs, Jews, whatever... I can't really tell you guys apart," he had replied. Doh! They must have been rough with him.
James Hider, who is assuming Farrell's old beat at the London Times, is also an old Baghdad hand. It's a beastly business.