I spent my childhood in a tiny pink house in suburban Chicago, surrounded by noise. The television blared theme songs from my grandmother’s soap operas. My grandfather’s fire department scanner interrupted with scratchy reports of people in distress. Aunties entered … Read more
When I hear teachers or soldiers or ministers talk about what they do as a calling, I get it. Though the public may not believe it, journalists carry a similar sense of duty and purpose, a similar feeling of being … Read more
My mom, like most Indigenous women of her time, didn’t really value Western education. It was my dad, an Italian son of immigrants, who pushed me to go to university. He knew a diploma was a key to the middle … Read more
I never dreamed of being a journalist. I came to this profession without studying it in college, guided by my love for the written word. I had studied history at the university, and always imagined that choice would lead me … Read more
As a reporter, I have written numerous stories about people. I hope I got as many stories right as I could, but I’m sure I missed many, too. The one I most regret not capturing is a personal one. That … Read more
It’s odd that we forget people in our reporting. We’re people. Everyone around us is a person, however annoying their habits might be. People want to know about people; gossip and curiosity are some of our default settings. Yet we … Read more
I didn’t always know I wanted to be a reporter. I came at it sideways, in college, after deciding to major in creative writing. There’s no career path for writing majors, so I did what a lot of aspiring writers … Read more
I came into journalism in a roundabout way. I was a voracious reader as a child, growing up in middle-class Nairobi, partly as a retreat from a difficult home situation as my parents’ marriage broke down. I spent hours poring over world maps, absorbing obscure facts from encyclopedias, and reading all manner of novels from Dickens classics to Sweet Valley High. Read more
The very first time I viewed a William H. Johnson painting, the work moved me so deeply, I immediately declared him my favorite artist. I was barely a teenager. I didn’t have a sophisticated, refined eye and … Read more
While on assignment in Somalia a few years back, I found myself sitting in the waiting room of the Mogadishu mayor’s office alongside a dozen Somali men—some in white robes, some in baggy suits. One of them—an old man with a … Read more
