For Afghans, a bittersweet escape from a music school gone silent

Marcus Yam is a foreign correspondent and photographer for the Los Angeles Times. Since joining in 2014, he has covered a wide range of topics including humanitarian issues, social justice, terrorism, foreign conflicts, natural disasters, politics and celebrity portraiture. He won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography in 2022 for images documenting the U.S. departure from Afghanistan that capture the human cost of the historic change in the country. Yam is a two-time recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award, notably in 2019, for his unflinching body of work showing the everyday plight of Gazans during deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip. He has been part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning breaking news teams.

Robert Meeks is a former senior director of video for news, business and politics at the Los Angeles Times. A native Angeleno, Meeks cut his journalism teeth as a reporter for the Orange County Register, the Compton Bulletin and the Inglewood Tribune. He joined The Times in 2014 and was instrumental in some of the newsroom’s biggest stories, including breaking news video coverage of the San Bernardino shooting, which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize. Meeks also assisted in the making of the podcast sensation “Dirty John.” His work has earned him three Los Angeles-area Emmy nominations, among other honors. Meeks is a graduate of Cal State Long Beach and an adjunct professor at USC. He makes it to Sunday dinner at his parents’ house in Los Angeles every weekend.