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Reporter without borders
Nicholas Kristof brings the world to us.
On the phone from his home in Westchester, New York, Nicholas Kristof seems mild mannered, soft-spoken, a little shy. Not quite what you’d expect of the intrepid New York Times columnist who reports on atrocities in hot spots such as Darfur, Rwanda and Congo. Then, in the same retiring tones, Kristof tells of the things he’s seen.
In 1990, the Chicago-born journalist and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, won a Pulitzer for their coverage of the democracy movement in China (Kristof won his second Pulitzer in 2006); their latest book is Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Knopf, $27.95). Reporter, a doc that follows Kristof in Congo, comes out on DVD on March 21.
On Monday 15, Kristof will speak at Northwestern in a free program presented by Facing History and Ourselves and the Allstate Foundation.
What’s it like to see such events—you recently wrote about Congolese “autocannibalism,” “re-rapes”—and then return to Westchester?
That is tough. You see kids playing in a sandbox here, and you think of kids playing in the mud in Congo. I have a friend who fell to pieces in the U.S. when she was just out of Darfur because she saw a bird feeder. Here people have enough extra resources to help wild birds get through the winter.
In Reporter, you ask locals in Congo if they know of a mom who’s lost her kids. Are you ever concerned that you choose stories to fit an agenda?
Not really. I try very hard to make sure these stories are accurate. I do sometimes worry that we present Africa as an unrelenting kaleidoscope of war and poverty that perhaps reduces the investment and tourism in the many parts of Africa that are doing pretty well.
You once bought two women out of prostitution. Any other times when your presence in a story altered it?
Yeah. When Sheryl and I were in China, a university student helped us cover the Tiananmen democracy movement. He got in trouble because of the help he’d given us and ended up in prison. He escaped and asked for our help in fleeing the country. Oh, we agonized over our responsibilities. In the end, we did help him, and he was able to get out.
Do your columns risk presenting African and Asian suffering for the edification or even entertainment of a liberal American readership?
Some people worry about “genocide porn.” That is not something that concerns me. If you look at Congo, the historical failure of the media isn’t that we depicted it too much or in too-frank terms. It’s that we didn’t cover it enough.
You and your wife write, “The number of victims of…gendercide far exceeds the number of people who were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century.” How should gendercide be addressed?
Education of girls is maybe the most cost-effective intervention. When one educates girls, brings them into the economy, that tends to give them real value in their families and their societies, and the gendercide ends.
It’s hard to ignore the subtext here: The non-Western world is clearly more rife with mistreatment of women than the West.
Yes, I think that’s true. When you have post-industrial economies that don’t tend to involve hard labor, women tend to do better, but it’s not just that. Social flexibility helped lead to the industrial revolution…. That may be a reason why the Western world today is both wealthier per capita but also more equitable than non-Western societies.
It sounds circular: that because the West was more socially liberal, it’s thus more…socially liberal.
[Laughs] I’d say because it’s more socially liberal, it ended up richer.
The first rule of reporting, you’ve said, is to make sure you get back alive. Any recent moments when you almost didn’t follow that rule?
Yes. [During a] trip to Congo, I managed to be in a plane crash, to be chased through the jungle for a week by a Tutsi militia and then finally got malaria. That was particularly traumatic.
During a family trip to Cambodia and Thailand, you and your wife took your kids to some brothels you’d both written about?
Sheryl and I debated about that. We didn’t know whether it was more problematic to bring our 12-year-old daughter or our 17-year-old son. [Laughs] But it was a real awakening for the kids. They met one girl who had her eye gouged out by a brothel owner.
What do you do when you’re not saving the world?
I love backpacking. The Pacific Crest Trail is maybe my favorite. It’s just a fabulous way to place oneself in a larger perspective.
Sounds a lot like your job.
Interesting, yeah, a little bit in that it’s travel, it’s restless, but I can’t tell you how reviving it is to go off where there are very few people.
Kristof speaks at Northwestern Monday 15 at 5:30pm.
