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Nicholas Kristof

Journalist and columnist, The New York Times; two-time Pulitzer Prize winner

United States · b. 1959

American journalist who has reported from more than 150 countries for The New York Times, sharing a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Tiananmen Square in 1990 and winning a second in 2006 for columns on Darfur. He has written extensively on human trafficking and global poverty.

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Question What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it?

And in the end they robbed us, but they did let us go. But I think that that was a very useful lesson early in my journalism career, that things can go very badly wrong. At one moment you can be going down a road and things are perfect, and the next moment you’ve got some drunk soldiers who just may kill you. That fear that I felt when they were holding us for maybe 45 minutes or so in the jungle, that has never entirely left me.

Recorded Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 3 July 2008 source ↗

Question What is the part of your job that people would be surprised is most of your job?

I have a bunch of rules for myself. You stop at every village, you ask what the situation is like between this village and the next village, you look for fresh tire tracks. If there are any land mines in the area, then you always want to make sure you go on fresh tire tracks to reduce the risk of mines. You carry a certain amount of money so that if some soldiers with guns want to rob you — no fuss — you give them a decoy wallet or some other money to make them happy, and you just learn to kind of be soothing with unpleasant people.

Recorded Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 3 July 2008 source ↗

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