Legendary War Reporter and Two-Time Pulitzer Winner John F. Burns Dead at 81

Legendary war correspondent John F. Burns, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and one of The New York Times’ most respected foreign reporters, has died at the age of 81.

Burns passed away Thursday from pneumonia at a care facility in Cambridge, according to The New York Times.

Born in Nottingham, England, in 1944, Burns built a reputation as one of the most fearless journalists of his generation. Over a career that spanned more than four decades, he reported from some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones, bringing readers firsthand accounts from the front lines of history.

Burns began his journalism career in 1971 at The Globe and Mail in Toronto, where he covered China from Beijing. Just a few years later, in 1975, he joined The New York Times — the outlet where he would spend the majority of his career and cement his legacy as one of the paper’s most accomplished reporters.

Throughout his time with the Times, Burns reported from a wide range of global hotspots, including Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He also worked from bureaus in South Africa, the Soviet Union, India, Pakistan, and London, often arriving in the middle of fast-moving international crises.

Colleagues at the newspaper once described him as the “consummate Foreign Desk fireman,” a nickname earned because he was frequently dispatched to the world’s biggest breaking news stories.

Burns’ powerful reporting earned him two Pulitzer Prizes during his career. He received his first in 1993 for his coverage of the brutal war in Bosnia. Four years later, in 1997, he won another Pulitzer for his reporting from Afghanistan during the early years of Taliban rule.

After decades covering global conflicts and historic events, Burns retired from The New York Times in 2015. By that point, he had served in 10 different bureaus around the world.

His final assignment for the paper was far from the battlefield — covering the historic reburial of England’s King Richard III.

Burns is survived by his children, Jamie and Emily Scott-Long, from his first marriage, along with a stepson and his two sisters, Caroline and Bridget.