NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof to speak at Columbia Basin Badger Club
Nicholas Kristof has traveled from his family’s small farm in Yamhill, Ore., to some of the world’s most depressed countries — and found hope along the way.
On Thursday, June 6, the Columbia Basin Badger Club will present an online forum featuring the journalist and author, who will talk about his new memoir, “Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life.”
In his book, Kristof, 65, recounts his event-filled and sometimes tense travels to some 150 countries. He’s reported on some of history’s most defining events in the hope that shining a light on them will bring positive change.
Kristof has worked 40 years for The New York Times as a reporter, foreign correspondent, bureau chief, and, since 2001, columnist. The winner of numerous awards including two Pulitzers — the first in 1990 with his wife
Sheryl WuDunn for their reporting on the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre — he specializes in human rights abuses and social injustices.
He’s reported extensively on the Darfur genocide in Sudan, where he’s traveled 11 times. And he has reported on international human trafficking, oppression of women, the Yemeni civil war and the drug addiction that has infected his hometown and much of working-class America.
Kristof is a self-described progressive who says that in his reporting he seeks extraordinary individuals who are “heroes, not victims.”
An example from the book “Half the Sky” that he and WuDunn published is a Cambodian teenage girl who escaped a Malaysian brothel to become a successful businesswoman with aid from American Assistance for Cambodia. The Kristofs have co-authored several other books.
He’s taken controversial positions, such as early criticisms of the Iraq War, U.S. policy toward Iran and Israel’s treatment of Palestinian Gazans.
He’s suggested teachers’ unions should push more for higher pay and less for protecting weak teachers. And with WuDunn has argued that sweatshops in Third World countries have actually often helped improve workers’ lives and help develop industrial economies.
The couple contend that “educating and empowering women is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism.”
In 2021, Kristof tried to run for Oregon governor as a Democrat but was disqualified for not meeting residency requirements. He is a Harvard graduate and has a law degree from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
Today, Kristof continues to write columns, but spends much of his time in Oregon on the family’s former sheep ranch and cherry orchard, which the couple is converting to an apple cider orchard and vineyard.
You can register for this event, which will include a Q&A session, at columbiabasinbadgers.com to receive a confirmation and links to join the Zoom forum and a half-hour “Table Talk” open-mic session afterward. Cost is $5 for others, while club members can join for free.