Miriam Elder

Miriam Elder
Elder in 2014
NationalityAmerican
OccupationJournalist

Miriam Elder is an American journalist who is foreign and national security editor for BuzzFeed News. She was formerly The Guardian's Moscow-based correspondent.[1] Her writings have been published by the Financial Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Atlantic, the International Herald Tribune and The Moscow Times.

Biography

Elder is a native New Yorker. She is a graduate of Barnard College, and holds an MA in strategic studies and international economics from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.[2]

She covered Russian news and affairs for Agence France Presse from 2002 to 2003, and worked for the International Herald Tribune in Paris, France, before moving to Moscow. She resided in Moscow from 2006 [3] to 2013.[4]

Elder was the first Western journalist to report on the Russian punk rock collective Pussy Riot.[1] In April 2012, while The Guardian's Moscow correspondent, Elder wrote an article critical of what she described as the epitome of Russian bureaucracy, stemming from an incident in which she attempted to retrieve her dry-cleaning after losing her ticket.[5] The article prompted a great laughter from Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, and Russians in general, who in a letter to The Guardian mocked Elder for her story[6] and countered with a comparison to the bureaucratic difficulties Russians face when applying for British visas.[7] Elder alleged his response was evidence of a return to Soviet-era whataboutism, and criticized Peskov for choosing to respond to a story on dry cleaning rather than the work she had done on corruption or the murder of Anna Politkovskaya.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b Friedman, Uri (June 10, 2013). "BuzzFeed hires Miriam Elder as foreign editor". Foreign Policy.
  2. ^ "bio/contact – Miriam Elder". www.miriamelder.com. Archived from the original on 2011-02-02.
  3. ^ "Miriam Elder | GlobalPost". Archived from the original on 2009-01-20.
  4. ^ @MiriamElder (16 July 2013). "Living my last week in Moscow with no hot water, which is nice" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  5. ^ Elder, Miriam (April 23, 2012). "The Hell of Russian Bureaucracy". The Guardian. Retrieved June 26, 2012.
  6. ^ "Putin Aide Hits Back at Guardian 'Red Tape' Story". Journal of Turkish Weekly. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2013-12-13.
  7. ^ a b Miriam Elder (April 26, 2012). "Want a response from Putin's office? Russia's dry-cleaning is just the ticket". The Guardian. Retrieved May 16, 2012.
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