Kim Barker (1988, OR)

Kim Barker is a reporter on the investigations team at The New York Times. Until 2018 she was a reporter on the metro desk, focusing on housing in New York City. Before joining The New York Times in 2014, she was an investigative reporter at the online nonprofit ProPublica, writing mainly about campaign finance. In late 2009 and early 2010, she was the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where she focused on Pakistan, Afghanistan, and United States policy. She was the South Asia bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune from 2004 to 2009. Her book, The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan, published by Doubleday in 2011, became the basis for the movie Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, starring Tina Fey. 

Before joining the Tribune, Ms. Barker worked for The Seattle Times, The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, and The Times in northwest Indiana. She has won investigative-reporting awards from organizations such as Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, and Best of the West. She was a Presidential Scholar in 1988 from the state of Oregon, despite her father forcing her to move there her senior year. She still gives him a hard time about it.