I continue to be bothered by your more recent articles on the people in Guatemala who are starving to death, as they are no longer able to grow crops on their land, due to climate change. Yet the trump administration has cut aid to this region. And now today we read about donald trump wanting to shoot them in their legs when they come here seeking asylum.
8
Nicholas, I have only been a New York Times subscriber for a short time so it was great to read some of your earlier columns. Your compassion shines clearly through everything you write. In these dark times, you truly are a Mensch. More power to your writing arm. And many more Pulitzers!
7
You are my favourite journalist because you write from the heart about human reality. We’re terrifyingly cruel creatures, astonishing really that nature still puts up with us, but when I read one of your columns I feel your care and love. Thank you. Without people like you the world would be even more grim and grey.
9
Thank you Mr Kristof for your pathbreaking work on child sex-trafficking in Cambodia. It made an incredible difference in the lives of women in Cambodia and around the globe.
When I went to Siem Reap in Cambodia, I had the honor of visiting the Samoly Mam center for trafficked women. It was an impressive place!
Your articles did so much to promote her and her center.
Changed the direction of the movement and the conversation on sex trafficked women.
Thank you!!!
6
Thanks for all the risks you take to keep those issues "on the agenda", Nick. Don't ever question that you are making a difference. Your columns are the best of the NYT's offerings.
4
If there was a newspaper on every coffee table, the world would be a better place.
4
Thank you for your incredible reporting on sex trafficking, particularly women in Cambodia.
In particular, I will never forget your work and advocacy for Somaly Mam. That series of work changed my mind of you and the NYT forever!
Thank you for work like that that was truly able to change my world view!!
3
Mr. Kristof, you're often an oasis of sense and decency in a sea of idiocy: you wrote about the suffering children of Yemen when the Times was publishing a dozen articles a day on Kavanaugh. You are one of the few reasons I still read the Times, though I've cancelled my subscriptions many times. The articles that stand out to me are those where you expose the horrors of the factory farming and cruelty to chickens (2014, 2015 "To Kill a Chicken" and "Abusing Chickens We Eat."). I wish you'd do more reporting like this, because the Times has an abysmal record of promoting cruelty to animals, and doing very little to expose it (even the NY Post does a better job on animal issues, and that isn't saying much). Thanks for being one of the few voices in the darkness speaking out for animals.
3
Thank you. Just thank you.
3
I am very happy to read that you will be publishing this collection. When I read about what you are doing to make this world a better place I am inspired to be a better human being. Bravo, Mr. Kristof!!
3
Mr. Kristof, I concur with the laudatory comments of others. Your work has shed light on important issues around the world. When I read your column this morning I remembered reading them in the original - it seems like yesterday. We hear a great deal about "citizen journalism", and getting news from social media these days. Your work continues to make it clear that we need real journalists, who work hard and sometimes put themselves at risk, to understand the world. Please keep up the good work for a long time yet.
5
Mr. Kristof, Thank you for your commitment and your courage. I’ve been reading your work from the beginning, watched it evolve into something approaching moral despair along with determination to make a difference in the world, sometimes disagreed with your approaches or at least used them in my university anthropology courses as complicated case studies, but never doubted your sincerity. As a China scholar, I read every word of your 1989 coverage, and now I especially appreciate your reports from non-elite US locations. I wish you as many more decades of courageous reporting as you want to undertake.
2
Thank you for your fine work. I have long been impressed by your research, writing, determination, and humanity. I appreciate your helping us see the brightest and best of us even in situations of darkness and despair. You have given your readers and those whom you've covered a sense that we matter. Your work gives me hope.
1
All of NY Times' readers probably have their own favorites written by Nicholas Kristof. As a father of two daughters, my favorite was of Nicholas writing about his hike with his daughter on the Pacific Crest Trail. What a tribute to the joys of family and nature. It reminded me of our family purposely visiting the great national parks and our times at smaller state and local parks. But, what comes back most is exposing our children to the joys of nature and then seeing their wonderment and curiosity develop into love and action to safeguard our earth. Thank you Nicholas for your years of writing. And, especially, thank you for that particular article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/opinion/pacific-crest-trail.html?searchResultPosition=4
3
To read, then to be inspired to act. A fine tribute to a fine journalist.
4
I salute your bravery, compassion and fortitude; some of these stories are truly heart wrenching, and it is to your credit that you continue. For what it's worth you really have made a difference and that is something to savour.
2
Thank you Mr. Kristof and NYT for these 35 years of sharing your perspective. Your work has touched me and my family and friends. I'm worried about you now though. Retrospectives and memoirs happen when people are leaving. I don't want you to stop.
5
"I came to see that on issues that people have already thought about, like Iraq or the Middle East, Donald Trump or abortion, it’s very difficult to change minds; the power of a columnist is less to sway people’s views than it is to propel an issue onto the agenda"
There were millions in the streets protesting the rush to war invading Iraq. I was one of them.
The war was pre-ordained by Cheney etc and the Industrial War Machine. The American people did not want it and we told our elected officials that. They went against our wishes.
5
Over the years, you've not only opened our hearts and sometimes reduced us to tears, but gotten us out of our chairs to do something to help people across the globe. I can't think of another writer who writes with such compassion and urgency. May you continue making the world a better place for another 35 years!
1
Your articles attracted my attention to NYT when there were many high-quality daily newspapers and weekly news journals. Thank you for keeping me woke while many others overly sanitize the stories for fear of repelling readers. -- The first step to resolving a problem is acknowledging it exists.
Also, thank you for including here the importance of including graphics and visuals. Hope more will come to understand how powerful they can be ... accelerating and crystallizing understanding of the magnitude of a situation when effectively documented.
THANK YOU!!!
1
I am a bookseller and a NYT reader. Thank you for your passion promoting so many important, and often overlooked, causes. I look forward to selling Tightrope in March next year.
2
I don't always agree with your columns, but I always look forward to reading them. You are a voice of hope, and I wish you many more years of bringing the stories of those without a voice to the attention of American (and in this case Israeli) readers. Thank you.
BTW I went to summer camp and attended the Fieldston School (I am one grade older) with Sheryl. I recall her well.
3
Not so much a Sisyphus, more of a Cassandra. Unfortunately, theres a lot of Cassandras around these days. It constantly baffles me how that can be.
Mr. Kristof, I've read the first few sections and clicked on the links to the articles. This is overwhelming. I always knew you dedicated you position and capacities to helping others, but I've known you only the last few years as a columnist. Turns out your experience, self-givingness and compassion are ... well, as huge as I thought they were, but with more dimension. I'll read the rest tomorrow when I have more time. To go through the career of such a journalist is amazing (I notice Robert Fisk just referenced one of your articles); and I much appreciated the photographs. I'm not surprised about Bill Gates and his wife, nor about all the money your readers raised to help others in need because, when we give all ourselves — and only then — angels come to our aid.
5
Nicholas Kristof, one of the highest and best examples of humanity, talent, and courage on this earth.
10
Hi Nicholas one story of yours that really touched me was when you "bought" the freedom of two girls in brothels. IIRC one was able to leave that life completely but the other went back to the brothel because of a drug addiction and an extreme emotional attachment to the brothel owner. I was wondering if you've had any follow up on those two girls (now they would be women I guess). I really was/am hoping for a happy ending on the girl who went back to the brothel.
2
You are the one who first opened my eyes to the plight of young women and girls around the world. Thank you for waking me up. I have now taught my own daughters about sex trafficking and how they can help lift up women in many ways.
3
I have been to the war in Iraq, twice, and keep wondering, how do you keep your sanity? I read your columns and I feel that have been exposed Tom so much trauma, yet, you continue. Maybe is because what you do is meaningful. As a soldier, I still feel that I was just part of the suffering and not the solution.
1
Congratulations on 35 years with this paper, Mr Kristoff. I am always moved by your writing. You have done good. You have spread good. You have made us better.
3
based on the photos, it'd look like you hardly age. here's to the next 35 years !!
3
Mr. Kristof, you are the best. Too bad there's only one of you.
6
Nicholas - When reading your pieces, I feel that I have hearing from a neighbor that I have known for years and trust. You are my neighbor who tells me stories of the world that need to be told. Thank you. I am retiring after 32 years in federal land management and have been reflecting on the "stories" in my career. I hope some of my work has facilitated moments of joy on the mountain that recharge you to be able to do your critical work.
5
For most of his 35-year career with the New York TImes, Nicholas Kristof has occupied a privileged space, one of enormous responsibility and influence. In a world where those with nothing to say have the entire world at their knee, Mr. Kristof reflects one of those rare instances where pulpit and message have been perfectly matched.
Happy 35th Anniversary, Nicholas Kristof (and many more!).
8
Nicholas, I admire your drive and your ethics.
If you seek to make a real difference in global survival, please begin a campaign for population control. Humans are clearly suffocating the planet and poisoning its resources. It is the root cause of misery. It is clear that certain population densities are unsustainable. Technology has its limits.
Water & food shortages, global warming, mass extinctions all fueled by over population.
3
For me, you're the only opinion writer, and almost the only reporter, at the NYTimes who writes about people as they are, as they see themselves and their peers, instead of looking at them through the lens you think your readers want you to use.
It's personal because when you write about the people I feel are my people, I recognize them. When others at this paper (and most other reporters) do the same, they make my people into strangers.
Thanks, Nicholas
3
I greatly enjoy reading Nicholas Kristof's articles. They strike a cord in me and cause me to think. Also I like his sentence style.
Thank you, Nick Kristof, for your excellent journalism and compassion. YOU are also a light in this often dark world!
3
What a life! And what incredible service to all of humanity.
4
I have been reading this paper for over 45 years and I must tell you the the TIMES has the finest journalists and continue to have them.
I applaud you for the dedication that you have showed with all the articles you have written.
Having said this I also like you like a friend I've not met.
Keep going and please keep on bringing out the common sense that society needs. Thank You
8
What a body of work. I remember reading many of them. I would say that your articles are the amongst the least likely to be "click -bait" and amongst the most likely to truly informative that I read.
Thanks for all the hard work!
Your work has always inspired me to tell stories that matter. As a fellow journalist and storyteller, I often ask myself this question, and in honor of your 35 years of profound work, I thought it appropriate to ask you too:
How do we fix the system?
In a world where anyone with internet access and a cursory knowledge of history can quickly determine that most modern conflicts are symptoms of a broken power system, how do we tell stories, write op-eds, enlighten people, in a way that asks the big questions?
The NYTM's fantastic three-part exploration of the Murdoch empire is a perfect example of that kind of work, expansive, heady, political - but it's almost as if the only people listening are the people who already know. In my work, I always chase the human stories (the more personal the more universal, they say) but I'm more and more determined to tell the big ones. Can we expose influence brokers, dynastic power, and unregulated capitalism in a way that a younger generation can understand, and get outraged about?
I think of Generation Alpha, marching in the streets, and what they'd make of a history lesson of power - if they knew about who repealed the FCC Fairness Doctrine, who finances climate denial, who wields the corporate capital that keeps assault rifles in America. I think they'd listen.
It's heartbreaking work, because we finally have everything we need to save the world - the resources, medicine, and technology - we just need the empathy to do it.
3
Thank you for your continuing thoughtful columns and reporting. I have learned much from your writings.
Congratulations on a life and career well spent. And congratulations to those whose lives you impacted by reporting their stories. And congratulations to us, the readers, who never would have heard about these people and events without your dogged pursuit of the truth. My Uncle once made me buy a cow for Christmas because you made a convincing case that buying one could save a family in Africa. The stories you reported on didn't just move you, they moved us all.
40
Yes, I agree with the other commenters – congratulations on being such a force for good. I sometimes think that you deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.
You are extremely fair, able to listen, to understand different sides of an issue, yet you argue forcefully for what you believe. There are other great columnists at the Times, but there’s nobody who I trust as much as you.
Over the years you have opened my eyes to many different issues. One that I’d add here, since you didn’t mention it in the column, is social entrepreneurship. I have a feeling that your pieces on this subject have inspired many people to become involved.
Thank you so much for your work. You often tackle unglamorous issues, you put yourself in danger – you are a light in this world.
63
Nick -- Congrats on a great career! You have been the Times reporter I can most relate to...
Unfortunately, there is still too much work to do... lawless executive, climate change, conflicts, racial tensions, and the plight of the poorest and most defenseless in the world, often women and girls. Keep doing your marvelous work!
42
Mr. Kristof, Your writing is a gift to humanity. Every time I read one of your articles I am actually more educated in terms of facts and values. I head for your articles first when I hit the front page. You certainly are king of the hill. I wish there were more reporters like you. Your work is deeply appreciated.
43
How many people can look back on their life’s work and know they have touched so many lives, sparked so many minds, inspired so many hearts to action? Thank you.
16
Readers : I just spent an hour reading every word of these stories. Yes, it was rough, but worth it. There is much sadness and despair in these stories, but also hope. In times of crisis, disasters and sadness, Mr. Rogers used to advise Children :
“ Look for the Helpers “. Mr. Kristof, YOU are the Helper, the very best writer AND person at the NYTs.
Thank you.
27
You have long been, more than any other person on the editorial page, the conscience of this newspaper, and thus, by extension, the conscience of so many others around the world who know to follow where you point and who are willing to step up and make the world a better place.
Long may you run. And long may you write.
185
@Glenn Ribotsky Thank you, Glenn. I'm now half way to 70 years on The Times! :)
42
Mr. Kristof,
I once met a theology student who previously had worked as a journalist. He saw journalism as a prophetic story telling. You certainly have consistently achieved that in your long career. Congratulations and thank you - for your courage and truth telling. Blessings.
2
Peace be with you, good sir. You’re doing noble work.
1
Mr. Kristof, you are the journalist I most admire. Your courage and your clarity of mission are an inspiration. I’m glad you’re having fun, because I’m hoping you’ll continue for a long time. Thank you.
5
Blessings on your head, Nick, and on those who assisted in your work!
2
Congratulations to you on a truly distinguished career and to the Times for having hired you in the first place then giving you the opportunity to travel the world writing both shocking and inspiring columns as only you can.
Your have managed to maintain your integrity and your humanity even in the face of the most appalling circumstances. Young journalists should take note of all the good that's come from your reporting. Please consider doing an annual column for potential philanthropists with a list of worthy causes and individuals. No one would be better at this than you.
11
I have greatly enjoyed your columns over the years. My favorite one lately is your description of the drug policy program in Seattle that called up a comment avalanche of vivid descriptions of the squalor going on there. Maybe not equal to Darfur or other desperate locales, but getting there...
You write with your heart, Mr. Kristof. And with your soul. Not just with your words. Your talent lies in your attitude toward your subjects and your audiences.
Thank you for being who you are and sharing those rare attributes with us all.
Never stop. Always start.
Thanks.
As many others have said, thank you. And keep working. Please.
I thank Trump for my discovery of Nicholas, one of the great journalists of our time. Thank Trump for what? Trump led me to a New York Times online subscription because they have his number and go after him daily one way or another.
Thank You for your service ! Sir!
It was interesting reading a review of your past stories.
It was also an effective piece of self-promotion.
You're a good man who's done good, valuable work. Long may ye wave.
1
Not only are his columns incredibly well-written and thoughtful, but Nicholas Kristof is like the Mr. Rogers of the New York Times. A man whose goodness and genuineness absolutely radiates through every thought, action, and word.
My favorite piece of yours was one I still frequently share today called "Our Fantasy Nation?", which gives a very clear case that the country touted as the Republican ideal (strong religion, low taxes, huge inequality, no social safety net) is, in fact, Pakistan. The sheer brilliance of it astounds me.
Thank you for 35 years of excellence.
22
Thank you for all your work as a journalist, Mr. Kristof. I remember your Kevin Green story quite well. I also have enjoyed your stories involving your family ancestry. My son will be graduating from Journalism school this year, and I always mention your work to him as something to emulate with his own voice. Keep writing for truth and justice.
1
Thank you, Mr. Kristof, and while this admirer of your humanitarian essays, and your endeavors on site, often in dangerous 'red zones', to inform your readership of what is happening on a global basis, does not remember that you started working at the New York Times so long ago, October 1, in your honor please accept my deep appreciation, and a cause for many of your family relations and friends to celebrate.
Earlier I watched on Netflix 'Inside Bill's Mind', where Bill and Melissa Gates are being interviewed on their dedicated work on 'WASH' and its progress, which you first brought to their attention via The New York Times, referenced as follows:
'My most consequential article was a 1997 piece from India about children dying needlessly of diarrhea and other ailments...'.
All your stories have merit, and it was meaningful for some of your readers to have a compilation of events over the years that inspire you to continue on this road less traveled, where some of us might be inspired to follow.
10
Thanks for your hard and excellent work.
10
1997 A Story Worth Billions...needed a reliable low coast
water pump.
India and Bangladesh 1967-1970: I was a young Unicef Field Rep who discovered thousands of broken handpumps. The villagers
couldn't repair them.
Later, as Assistant Director Health Sciences IDRC Ottawa,
I found a brilliant and very practical American well driller,Tim Journey, who in collaboration with engineers at the University
of Waterloo Research Institute developed a low cost, efficient
and reliable pump that could be maintained a village level.
Other research found that the incidence of diarrhea increased
as the distance from the water source increased.
The main object was to give villagers the ability to drill a two inch
diameter well and install a plastic pipe, that would also serve
as the cylinder for the pump.
This would reduce the diarrhea factor and the tedious hours that girls and women spent carrying water from a distant well.
Forty years later Tim Journey's invention could also be adapted to low cost solar powered irrigation pumps for small farmers.
Here's a challenge for Microsoft engineers: help villagers
design a 300 watt solar powered pump using Tim Journey's
concept. There are some Mayan farmers in the Chicxulub Crater, where I now live, who would help with the field testing.
References
University of Waterloo Research Institute pump journey rudin
plumtree
marlon brando visits india village with unicef official itm 1967
(I'm the thin one)
5
Congratulations and thank you for using the power of your position for the greater good of ALL.
5
Thank you for 35 years of illuminated journalism. You make a difference. Your writing allows your readers to make a difference as well.
11
Thank you for your humanity and caring.
5
My favorites, the Bishop story of injustice of course. But this story broke my heart....
“Sometimes you see your own country more sharply from a distance. That’s how I felt as I dropped in on a shack in this remote area of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.
The head of the impoverished household during the week is a malnourished 14-year-old girl, Dao Ngoc Phung. She’s tiny, standing just 4 feet 11 inches and weighing 97 pounds.
Yet if Phung is achingly fragile, she’s also breathtakingly strong. You appreciate the challenges that America faces in global competitiveness when you learn that Phung is so obsessed with schoolwork that she sets her alarm for 3 a.m. each day.”
November 2011. Thanks Nick.
3
Very moving; thank you. If only your Iraq considerations had been taken seriously.
5
One of my other favorites is about your backpacking trip and your daughter standing on her head doing a cartwheel...I'd love to see that picture again.
25
@Dolly Patterson If you want to read more about our backpacking adventure--and see my daughter put me in my place!--check out this piece: https://www.backpacker.com/stories/growing-up-on-the-pct-nicholas-kristof
10
Powerful, compelling, compassionate, truthful and wise your reporting is!
5
The problem with the media is blaring in this article. A reporter thinks he is so important that he needs to rehash stories he has covered. The news is the event not the reporter or messenger.
First things that should be done is eliminate by lines (and get their pictures off their reports) and stop giving Pulitzer prizes.
Both of these lead to big headed reporters who think they are as important as the story.
1
@John Gilday It is difficult to say anything other than WOW. One could hope that you are being sarcastic, but I suspect not. Possibly merely jealous.
Just thank you.
6
I hope this particular column doesn't indicate that you are thinking of retiring..........
You and your work are so special.
7
Thank you for doing what you do, Mr. Kristoff.
5
Men in my own family will gladly vote for a politician who describes women like they're pieces of meat. This daily drumbeat of marginalization is one I have come to expect. You can see what it means to me, when a man will concern himself with the plight of women who are completely forgotten and discarded by the world.
12
"It was my first real job"
Nick, being a Harvard and Oxford graduate, you ought to know better than to use an insulting term like "real job." Or maybe your elite background is the problem. You grew up the son of a University of Chicago Ph.D. (Ladis Kristof), so maybe it was relatively easy for you to imagine yourself becoming a New York Times reporter as you entered young adulthood and came to view many jobs out there as "beneath" you.
Do understand that a person who grows up the child of a single mother waitress with no higher educational credential than high school diploma regards any steady job s/he can get as being a "real job." Hotel bellhop, grocery store cashier, you name it.
Did I mention that I very much dislike the term "real job?"
1
My my, cue the violins.
Thank you!
1
I see being Mia Farrow and Dylan Farrow's personal press agent didn't make the cut.
2
Just wow!
1
Hello Nick,
My name is Jake and I am a current Journalism student in college. As a young reporter, I wanted to tell you I am inspired by your humility and transparency. Every day, you help the public realize that in the hardest of times there is good in this world. I thank you very much for that.
94
@Jake L. Thank you, Jake, for reading my columns--and, even more, for studying journalism. We need good journalists and, as you suggest, we need to figure out how in our reporting to balance coverage of corruption, greed and brutality with reminders of hope and decency so that readers don't just tune out and give up. This will seem funny coming from someone who writes about so many grim subjects, but it's important to inspire as well as shock.
44
I also was touched by your articles on endocrine disrupters and gun violence also. Your articles do more than entertain. Your a motivator - like a wonderful general - exciting people to take up causes and fight to make differences in the world. I’m so glad there are people like you making use of their talents not just for personal gain - and it’s wonderful you are teaching young journalist - keep it up - not many like you - your like a Roger Federer - Beyoncé - Barak Obama - in journalism
28
@Russell Aw, thank you. I'm glad you liked the columns on plastics and guns. As a farm boy who grew up with guns, I think that gives me just a little bit of credibility with gun-owners and that i should use that to argue for gun safety measures.
19
And now, Nicholas, you must cover your final, and most important story, which likely will take many chapters: the story of how the super-rich, completely aware of impending climate disaster, are playing pretend with us, and distracting us, when their fundamental unspoken goal is to just let us all die.
This is genocide on an unspeakable scale, is systematic, planned, and unfolding right before our eyes.
Better get on it. I challenge you. Look forward, not back. That is what any feeling person must do.
50
@Steven Thanks for your suggestion, Steven, and i share your concern. I have been writing about climate since the mid 1990s and have gone to far corners of the earth to chronicle change--Kiribati, Alaska, Madagascar, Bangladesh. It's frustrating, though, that it's one of those issues that is hard to change minds on. People who already agree with me think that those columns are powerful; people who start out disagreeing with me think that I've completely missed the point. I'm still noodling through how I can write about the issue in a way that can actually change minds.
36
who are you grooming to stand beside you and then stand in your place ?
1
I've read your column for years, and so respect your integrity, depth, the light you shine on important topics, and, for want of a better word, soul. Thank you.
5
It must be a delicate balance, to mix informing readers with objective information along with the emotions that one cannot help but feel when witnessing the extraordinary.
You have it just right.
You make us aware and make us care.
Thank you for your superb writing. Your stories resonate on with us, too.
8
Amazing career so far! When kids think about what they can do to truly make a difference, I wish they could all be encouraged to read this. Thank you for the difference you have made for so many (and keep up the great work)!
5
Thank you for being a sober, thoughtful voice throughout the years, Mr. Kristof. While you have not served in public office, you've nonetheless been a public servant of sorts, and the country and the public at large has been better off for it.
Wishing you (and us) many more years at the Times.
2
I always appreciate your annual suggestions for gift giving during the holiday season, and I thank you for your writings.
4
Thanks so much for being a voice for women where there aren't any empowering voices. We need you now more than ever.
18
Today is also China's national day, and when I read Mr. Kristoff's touching article, I cannot help but ponder the irony that the government which crushed protests in Tiananmen was also the most successful at alleviating other ills that plague the developing world. Already, China has achieved 100% electricity coverage at the village level, a literacy rate of over 95% for the new generation, and a life expectancy of 76yrs that is set to exceed the US's 78yrs in the coming decades. Mr. Kristoff would no doubt like to see that his vision of universal liberalism, coupled with donations from Western readers of the Times, uplift billions from poverty. But I predict the developing world will ultimately adopt the Chinese model as their path of development.
2
I've not been reading the Times for as long as you have been employed Nick; however, I remember several of the linked articles. Ones you failed to mention regarding Sudan were articles about Valentino Achak Deng and his education foundation. Inspired by what you wrote I have been donating to the school (and recently for the Alok Girls Academy) for years. Education combats ignorance, advances health and provides a better future for all. Keep up the excellent journalism; hopefully you'll be writing for another 35 years!
34
@Julie I missed the article about the education foundation. But I read the article he wrote about Room To Read when it came out. As a librarian (now retired) how could I not donate to the cause of teaching young women to read?
Thanks to Mr Kristof for that and so many other stories.
9
@Julie Thanks so much for contributing to Valentino's school. South Sudan is in desperate shape, and it has been so inspiring to visit that school and see it thrive even in a civil war--because of Valentino's vision and the generosity of readers like you!
15
You're a great journalist with the talent to connect a human face to the tragedies you've covered. Personalizing the story may energize a reader to care enough to try to do something to help.
I hope you'll choose to cover the impacts climate change, ecosystem and extinctions are already having on the planet.
6
Each of the stories you referenced has its own value. I cannot select one that resonated "the most." I so deeply appreciate your voice, your diligence, your courage, and your sacrifices over the years. I've always enjoyed a sense of connection to you as a human being. Imagine my joy in discovering that we share a home state.
The evil done by people in the world can only be offset by the good being done by others, including yourself. I wish you continued strength and opportunities to bring awareness to those willing to care and to act. And I wish blessings for you and your loved ones. Thank you.
54
What an incredible (and long) timeline of quality investigative journalism. Thank you for all of your hard work.
I was struck by one sentence though: ''...the power of a columnist is less to sway people’s views than it is to propel an issue onto the agenda. ''
I would think that it would be the ability of the columnist to sway the RIGHT person or persons, that would then in turn propel an issue into the forefront of more people. That would start a chain reaction actually leading to positive results.
I think we need more of this from more columnists. That is to say that they word and back up their columns/essays to box in people that want to only disregard or propel their own sets of talking points. We need educators.
I would refer you to Rachel Maddow as an example of one that does just that. Her profile in your paper today.
6
Please keep at it. I've really enjoyed your work.
To the readers out there, I recommend checking out the Netflix series about Bill Gates. It was Nick's reporting that got Bill and Melinda interested in global health, specifically polio eradication in Africa and Central Asia.
20
Josh -- It is an excellent series. But it was Nick' writing on dysentery, not polio, that inspired the Gates Foundation (as Nick himself mentions in his article).