WASHINGTON — Back in 1989, Kimberly Dozier was looking for an entry-level job in journalism. Now one of the major foreign correspondents of our time, Dozier lies in a hospital bed, recovering from the severe wounds she suffered from an improvised exploding device in Baghdad, Iraq.
The Kimberly Dozier who came through the door of the National Press Building in Washington in 1989 was a little chubby, seriously in need of a hairdresser and some guidance in makeup application. But she was curious, funny, smart and ambitious.
My colleague, Richard McCormack, hired her as a reporter on one of my publications, New Technology Week. It was not an easy place to start because the subjects were immensely complex and demanding. Yet her bylines appeared week by week, as she wrestled with issues from advanced computing to space science. She learned quickly and learned well — and we all suspected that she would go on to something big.
Dozier graduated from Wellesley College with honors and headed for an Israeli kibbutz. She was not Jewish, but she told us that she loved the kibbutz.
As the youngest member of the staff, we ragged her mercilessly and she fought back, giving as good as she took. Lucy Reilly Fitch, who worked with Dozier, remembers her as getting more confident and sophisticated as time went by.
One year, Dozier took a vacation in the New Jersey wilds. There was something seminal about that vacation because she came back a grown-up person. Later, I moved her to my flagship publication, The Energy Daily, where she also excelled.
While other young reporters dream of jobs at The Washington Post and The New York Times, covering the White House and Congress, Dozier wanted something more adventurous. She asked another work colleague, Linda Gasparello, who had lived and worked in Egypt, for advice on how to get a reporting job there. Gasparello told her, "Just show up and write. Someone will hire you sooner or later."
She took this advice, quit my employment (after three years) and headed for Cairo, stopping only to pick up a master's degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Virginia. In a sense, she was a throwback to an earlier generation of journalists: stout hearts who went to the news and did not wait to be sent there.
Dozier had a highly developed sense of right and wrong. In the office, she would not abide anything she thought was unfair. She brought the same innate sense of justice to her reporting — something that stood her in particular good stead in the turbulent Middle East.
We assumed that Dozier would make a big mark in journalism, but we thought that it would be in print. We did not think of her as broadcaster, let alone a television correspondent. Neither, I suspect, did she. However, CBS Radio News started using Dozier as a freelancer in Cairo and eventually hired her and moved her to London. Her sense of curiosity, her energy, her speaking voice, propelled her on.
Soon, Dozier was the CBS Radio News bureau chief in London and chief European correspondent. She got her war correspondence experience covering the Balkans.
Next came Iraq. And Iraq, and Iraq, and Iraq. Dozier seemed to be in Iraq more than she was anywhere else. We, who knew her and followed her through her work, would say, "Kim's done. She should get out of there."
That is not her way. But she will, I am sure, get out of that hospital and go back to where the action is. That is her way.
Llewellyn King is the publisher of White House Weekly and host of the weekly PBS television show "White House Chronicle." While other young reporters dream of jobs at The Washington Post and The New York Times, covering the White House and Congress, Dozier wanted something more adventurous. She asked another work colleague, Linda Gasparello, who had lived and worked in Egypt, for advice on how to get a reporting job there. Gasparello told her, "Just show up and write. Someone will hire you sooner or later."