The Washington Post

Announcement from Foreign Editor Douglas Jehl, Deputy Foreign Editor Eva Rodriguez and Foreign Assignment Editor Benjamin Soloway:

We’re thrilled to announce that Antonia Noori Farzan will join Foreign as a staff writer focusing on breaking news, explainers and other stories that deliver what readers need to know about stories unfolding around the world.

Since joining The Post in 2018, Antonia has been a standout reporter on Morning Mix, where her specialties have included illuminating the backstories behind big headlines. (It turns out that President Trump wasn’t the first U.S. leader to contemplate purchasing Greenland!) Since April, she has worked closely with Foreign editors as the principal overnight writer on the coronavirus beat, and she has excelled in delivering the high-velocity live updates that have become an effective and popular storytelling tool. Along with capturing the grim toll and lessons learned from other countries’ pandemic experiences, Antonia has written quirky and occasionally uplifting stories that are fun reads, such as the time Peru opened Machu Picchu for just one Japanese tourist and the rise of “flights to nowhere.’’

Antonia is a graduate of Hamilton College, with a B.A. in classics, and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She began her career in the world of alternative weeklies, first in Rhode Island and then at the New Times in Miami and Phoenix. She shared a George Polk award in 2017 for exposing Motel 6’s collaboration with ICE, the federal agency responsible for immigration and customs enforcement.