Joel Brinkley, reporter who won Pulitzer Prize in international reporting, dies at age 61

WASHINGTON – Joel Brinkley, a former New York Times reporter who won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 1980, has died.

His wife, Sabra Chartrand, confirmed Thursday that the 61-year-old Brinkley died Tuesday at a Washington hospital. The cause was not immediately known.

Brinkley began his career at The Associated Press in Charlotte, N.C., in 1975. He won the Pulitzer Prize while a reporter at The Louisville Courier-Journal. He and photographer Jay Mather shared the prize for stories from Cambodia.

Brinkley joined the Times' Washington bureau in 1983 and stayed at the paper for 23 years. He was the author or co-author of four books, the latest on Cambodia. He later taught journalism at Stanford University.

Brinkley's father, news anchor David Brinkley, died in 2003.