Barry Leon Bearak (born August 31, 1949, in Chicago) is an American journalist and educator who has worked as a reporter and correspondent for The Miami Herald, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. He taught journalism as a visiting professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Bearak won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his penetrating accounts of poverty and war in Afghanistan. The Pulitzer Prize committee cited him "for his deeply affecting and illuminating coverage of daily life in war-torn Afghanistan.". Bearak was also a Pulitzer finalist in feature writing in 1987. On April 3, 2008, Bearak was taken into custody by Zimbabwean police as part of a crackdown on journalists covering the 2008 Zimbabwean election. He was charged with "falsely presenting himself as a journalist" in violation of the strict accreditation requirements that were imposed by the government of Robert Mugabe. Despite worldwide condemnation and court petitions that were filed immediately to release him from detention, Bearak remained in a detention cell in Harare for 5 days. On April 7, 2008 Bearak was released on bail by a Zimbabwean court. On April 16, 2008, a Zimbabwean court dismissed the charges against Bearak, saying that the state had failed to provide evidence of any crime, and ordered that Bearak and Stephen Bevan, a British freelance reporter who had also been accused of violating the country's stiff journalism laws, be released. Immediately following the court ruling, Mr. Bearak left Zimbabwe and returned to his home in Johannesburg." Biography Bearak began his career as a general assignment reporter for the Miami Herald, where he worked from 1976 to 1982. He then became a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, working for the L.A. Times for over 14 years. In 1997, he joined The New York Times, where he served as a foreign correspondent, magazine writer and sports writer. Bearak was co-bureau chief of the Times's South Asia bureau in New Delhi from 1998 to 2002. In early 2008, Bearak and his wife Celia Dugger became co-bureau chiefs of The New York Times''' Johannesburg bureau. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Bearak has twice received the George Polk Award for foreign reporting, in 2001 "for his dynamic eyewitness reporting on the Taliban and his subsequent coverage of the war on terror," and in 2008, along with Celia Dugger, for "dozens of stories that painted