Reporting from dangerous war zones and serving as a witness to great human suffering, Nicholas Kristof has over his long career in journalism bravely exposed injustices that moved world leaders and philanthropists.
The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author and columnist for the New York Times will speak in San Antonio as a guest of the Trinity University Maverick Lecture series on Sept. 19.
He recently spoke with the San Antonio Report from his home in Oregon about what lessons he hopes San Antonio listeners will take away from his lecture, “Lessons from 30 Years of Covering the World.”
The co-author of two books, Kristof’s latest is a memoir titled, Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life, in which he details the harrowing experiences and insights from his work.
For Kristof, influencing change in remote corners of the world, or in your hometown, starts with understanding.
“We have the tools to address inequity, and we have the resources,” he said. “Sometimes what we lack is the empathy.”
But there’s hope in this, too. “That’s something that the public and journalists alike can work on, and that if we work together, we can make real progress and make San Antonio and Texas and the country much better off,” he said.
It will be Kristof’s first visit to San Antonio.
The lore of the name behind the program, which honors the late civil rights lawyer, Texas state politician and newspaper columnist Maury Maverick Jr., is what drew him in.
“I get kind of a kick out of the word ‘maverick,’” he said. “It’s such a great English word. It tends to be associated with journalists … so it’s an honor to deliver a lecture … named after the family and the person who made that very real.”
Kristof’s path to journalism began early when he wrote the story of his friend’s broken nose and sold copies to neighbors. He later wrote for the school newspaper at a time when many of the kids in his economically beleaguered Oregon town were falling victim to drugs. It didn’t have to be that way, he said.
“We spent a ton of money incarcerating my old school friends when that money would have been much better spent educating them, getting them off drugs, sending them to community college to give them a skill,” Kristof said.
The nation’s school dropout rate troubles him. “I think one of the crucial lessons I learned is that we all have a stake in getting kids on a better path.”
But many young people are in despair that is paralyzing and often self-fulfilling, he said. They need to be offered hope, which he calls a kind of muscle. “If you put your shoulder to the wheel, then it doesn’t guarantee better outcomes, but it makes them possible,” he said.
After a lifetime of covering war, massacre, famine and addiction, cheating death numerous times, Kristof understandably admits to a mild case of self-diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder. He copes by working for change.
“That’s what gets me up in the morning — with my imperfect tools and my laptop and my camera to see what I can do to chip away at [problems], and knowing that it’s not always going to be very effective, but is better than sitting at home and watching TV,” he said.
With newspapers nationwide and the media as a whole under pressure today, Kristof said that it’s “a terribly difficult time” to be in journalism. Still, he believes in its capacity to help a nation make progress.
“The first sentence of my book is, ‘journalism is an act of hope,’ and I really believe that,” he said.
The Maverick Lecture is underwritten by the William and Salomé Scanlan Foundation.
The event will be Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. in the university’s Stieren Theater. It is free and open to the public. Registration is required.
