ABOUT

Abby Sewell is a journalist based in Beirut, where she is currently the Associated Press news director for Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Turkey.

Previously she was features editor of L’Orient Today, the English-language sister publication of the long-running Lebanese French-language newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour. She has covered and coordinated coverage of major regional events including the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Beirut port explosion. She started her journalism career at community newspapers in Oregon and California before going on to graduate school at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. From 2010 to 2016 she worked as a metro staff reporter with the Los Angeles Times, where she reported on local politics, nuclear power, and the intersection between the criminal justice and mental health systems and was part of the team that covered municipal corruption in Bell and the cities of southeast Los Angeles County, leading to the Times’ Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2011. Since 2016, she has been based in Beirut, where she has written about refugee issues, politics and culture and volunteered as an English teacher. Prior to joining L’Orient Today at its launch in 2020, she worked as a staff reporter with The Daily Star of Lebanon and as a freelancer, with articles appearing in publications including U.S. News & World Report, Public Radio International, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, WIRED, National Geographic Travel, Refugees Deeply, Middle East Eye, and The New Humanitarian.

Contact: sewella@gmail.com