Craig Whitlock


Craig Michael Whitlock is a journalist working for The Washington Post, where he is responsible for covering the Pentagon and national security. He has worked as a staff writer for the Post since 1998, and covered the Maryland Statehouse in Annapolis and the Prince George's County police department for almost six years, Whitlock served as the paper's Berlin bureau chief and covered terrorism networks in Europe, South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. He has reported from over 50 countries. Before working for The Washington Post, he served as a reporter for the Raleigh News & Observer.

Awards and honors

He was awarded the German Marshall Fund's 2005 Peter R. Weitz senior prize for his coverage of international terrorist networks. He is also a three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize., most recently in 2013 for national reporting on counterterrorism.

Personal

He graduated from Unionville High School where he was editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, The Indian Post. He then went on to Duke University where he was editor of student paper The Chronicle, and has also reported for The News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C. In 1996, he married Jennifer Ninel Toth, a journalist who graduated from Washington University in St. Louis and received a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. Whitlock is the son of Dr. Robert Whitlock, a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Other Important Works

He is also known well for recently covering the Afghanistan Papers, a series of documents covering declassified information about the war in Afghanistan. This information mainly focuses on the government's attempts to hide these documents, as they revealed many details about the war : The possibility that there never was a strategy for winning, nor was there a reason to be there; The lack of preparation, and; massive unnecessary funds being put into what was arguably always a pointless cause.