Nate Thayer

Nate Thayer
Nate Thayer discussing Pol Pot's trial, July 1997
Born	(1960-04-21) April 21, 1960 (age 57) Massachusetts
Education	University of Massachusetts, Boston
Occupation	Journalist
Website	http://profile.typepad.com/natethayer

Nate Thayer (born April 21, 1960) is a freelance journalist, whose journalism has focused on international organized crime, narcotics trafficking, human rights, and areas of military conflict. He is notable for having interviewed Pol Pot, in his capacity as Cambodia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review.

Thayer has written for Jane's Defence Weekly, Soldier of Fortune, Associated Press and for more than 40 other publications, including The Cambodia Daily and The Phnom Penh Post. Thayer’s reporting earned him the 1998 Francis Frost Wood Award for Courage in Journalism, given by Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York to a journalist "judged to best exemplify physical or moral courage in the practice of his or her craft." He was a visiting scholar at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University as well as the first recipient of the Center for Public Integrity's ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting in November, 1998. Upon awarding Thayer the ICIJ Award, the judges noted:

According to Vaudine England of the BBC, "Many of the region's greatest names in reporting made their mark in the pages of the Review, from the legendary Richard Hughes of Korean War fame, to Nate Thayer, the journalist who found Cambodia's Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot."