Christina Goldbaum is a Pulitzer Prize-winning international correspondent for The New York Times and its Beirut bureau chief, leading coverage of Lebanon and Syria. Her reporting has taken her to the front lines of wars, insurgencies and political upheavals across Africa, South Asia and the Middle East, chronicling the collapse of governments, the rise of armed movements and the toll of war on civilian populations.
As Beirut bureau chief, Christina has covered two wars in Lebanon, the sudden overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria and the political and military upheaval that has reshaped both countries. Before moving to Beirut, she spent three years covering Afghanistan and Pakistan, first arriving in Kabul weeks before the Taliban seized the capital in 2021. She remained in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, reporting from across the country and gaining rare access to smugglers, armed rebels and jihadist fighters. She later served as the Afghanistan and Pakistan bureau chief.
Christina joined The Times in 2018, initially reporting from New York and later southern Africa. Before that, she spent four years as a freelance correspondent in East Africa, writing for Foreign Policy, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic, among other publications. For more than a year, she was the only foreign correspondent based in Mogadishu, where she investigated the expanding U.S. military campaign in Somalia and exposed civilian casualties from American military operations. Her reporting earned her a Livingston Award for international reporting, a National Press Club Award for diplomatic reporting and the Frontline Club's print award.
In 2025, Christina and two colleagues won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for investigations into the failures of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Her work has also been recognized by the Overseas Press Club, the South Asian Journalists Association and the Gerald Loeb Awards.
Awards & Accolades
Kim Wall Award Citation, Overseas Press Club – 2026
The Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting – 2025
The Hal Boyle Award, Overseas Press Club – 2024
The Daniel Pearl Award, South Asian Journalists Association – 2024
The Hal Boyle Award, Overseas Press Club – 2021
The Gerald Loeb Award for Visual Storytelling – 2021
Livingston Award for International Reporting – 2018
Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence, The National Press Club – 2018