Category NEW MEDIA AND JOURNALISM

Turning the Camera into a Compass of Conscience: On Ethical Witnessing with Brent Huffman

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Interview Series: Interdisciplinary Film Studies: Documentary Cinema | Interviewer: Tuğba Bahar

Brent Huffman | Documentary & Television Director, Producer, Writer, and Cinematographer, Professor, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University


We are in pursuit of a lens that stretches from the world’s most high-risk crisis regions and dusty archaeological sites to the corridors of maximum-security prisons. Award-winning director and Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism Professor Brent Huffman is more than just a “documentarian”; he is an ethical advocate for the truth. From Mes Aynak, Afghanistan’s 5,000-year-old heritage on the brink of erasure, to the war-torn streets of Yemen, Huffman’s camera always seeks that rendered-invisible conscience. In this interview, we spoke with Huffman about the aesthetic boundaries of documentary cinema, the intimacy afforded by being a “one-man crew,” and how independent storytelling can survive in an era dominated by algorithms.

When we look at your films, we see a powerful emotional foundation where personal loss, social injustice, and a heavy sense of witnessing are intertwined. What is the fundamental motivation that pushes you out of your comfort zone and into the world’s most high-risk crisis regions? Is it more of an “intellectual rage,” or a reckoning of conscience?

The passion that drives me has always been social justice and human rights. As a child I grew up with an angry and abusive father, so my earliest memories are feelings of being trapped and oppressed. When I see someone’s rights being infringed upon or taken away, I feel immediate empathy because I relate to this feeling on this level. I feel a personal connection to these people who are oppressed, and I feel a personal obligation to do everything I can to help them.

In telling human rights and social justice stories, I am also drawn to stories that are difficult to tell. If someone tells me, “that story is impossible to tell” due to the region being dangerous and the threat level high for the subjects, I feel drawn to these stories. As a documentary filmmaker and journalist, we cannot be told “don’t tell this story because it is high risk or even impossible to tell”. In many ways, I feel these are the most important stories to tell and the individuals in the greatest need of my help. It is my personal duty to tell these stories to the world. There is a wonderful quote that my role model Academy Award winning filmmaker
Julia Reichert used to always say, “Be ashamed to die unless you have won some victory for humanity,” by Horace Mann. I feel it is my role as a filmmaker to use the medium to help humanity.

In Saving Mes Aynak, the camera was not merely a passive observer recording events; it transformed into a tool for cultural activism. While documenting that 5,000-year-old heritage that archaeologists were trying to protect at the cost of their lives, when did you become convinced that cinema should be an active “protective shield” rather than just an archive?

I do try and separate my activism from my documentary films, though you are right, Saving Mes Aynak is a call to action to save Afghanistan’s threatened heritage and the human rights of the Afghan people. I also try to use my own voice separate from the film to advocate for these rights appearing on CNN, Al Jazeera, PBS, etc. to warn the world of this impending tragedy. So I try to separate the two. For example, I don’t appear in the film SMA and let the subjects of the documentary speak for themselves about what is happening. But outside of the film I donated money to their cause buying them computers and digital cameras, created
online petitions, screenings and awareness campaigns, etc., to help save the ancient Buddhist city of Mes Aynak and to support the human rights of Afghans. But in the documentary SMA, it is Qadir, the Afghan archaeologist who is the central subject of the film, who is the real hero risking his life to save the threatened heritage of Afghanistan. I am using the film to amplify his voice.

Finding Yingying, which you produced, is a deeply sensitive narrative that avoids the often pain-exploiting traps of the “true crime” genre. In such traumatic stories, is stopping the recording at a family’s most vulnerable moment—or choosing not to use those scenes—a professional loss for a director, or an ethical imperative? Where do you draw that line?

Good question. These vulnerable moments, as long as the subjects are OK with them being filmed as they were in FY, are so important for audiences to see. In FY the family will never recover from the loss of their daughter. The family members are forever broken by her tragic murder. And I feel it is so important that audiences see and feel that love and loss, even when it is painful to view. I wanted audiences to feel empathy for Yingying’s family and to imagine how they would feel if this loss happened to them. And you are correct, we tried very hard to not fall into the dehumanizing and sensationalizing traps of the true crime genre.

We wanted FY to be a celebration of Yingying, her life, her passions, and the many people who loved her, not a story of her killer and tragic murder. FY also began as a class project in my documentary class. I am so proud of that project and its evolution from student film to award winning documentary seen around the world.

In war zones or hard-to-reach areas, you often take on the roles of director, cinematographer, and sound operator all by yourself—essentially acting as a “one-man crew.” How does this state of solitude break down the hierarchical “cold” distance between you and the people whose stories you tell? Do those small cameras offer you a kind of “invisibility” and a gateway to “intimacy”?

Yes, I also work in the cinema verite tradition where I try to become like a fly on the wall and capture life as if I am invisible. I want the subjects to tell their stories themselves and to do that you need to develop a deep trust and rapport with your subjects. And this trust takes time especially in the kinds of places I work in where I am seen initially as an outsider. I do also work with local producers and translators and I do interact with the subjects, so it is not so much solitude as it is a kind of deep immersion into the lives of others.

In your current project, Yemen Mosaic, you are shifting your focus to Yemeni women working to save their cultural heritage. While recording this massive legacy that war and time are trying to destroy, how has the resilience of these women transformed your cinematography and your worldview?

I am immensely inspired by my subjects, and I am deeply honored that they allow me to be a witness to their lives. Their passion to save heritage, even when it might risk their life, deeply inspires and moves me. Keep in mind also that these women are working in a patriarchal society that sometimes makes their work very difficult. The resilience of these women, their love of heritage, and their hope for the future is infectious and is a central theme I want audiences to feel when viewing the film.

At the Medill School, you produce projects by taking your students to “rendered invisible” spaces like prisons, such as in Documenting Carceral Injustice. How do you instill the concept of “ethical witnessing” in a new generation of documentarians, rather than a sterile concept like “objectivity”? What is the biggest misconception you see in their first encounters within a prison?

This is a great question. There is a terrible history of human rights abuses around prisons in the U.S. that I won’t get into here, but the point is that incarcerated people have had their rights and their story taken from them by the carceral system. My students need to be taught about this history and about how vulnerable and oppressed incarcerated people are.

In my documenting carceral injustice program, we collaborate with incarcerated people in the entire filmmaking process, in order to tell the incarcerated person’s story in their own words, again a story that the carceral system has taken from them.

Negative stereotypes also portray incarcerated people in a extremely negative light. So we strive in the class to also humanize incarcerated people and break these harmful stereotypes. The first misconception from students comes from these stereotypes often portrayed in Hollywood fiction films and TV shows – that portray incarcerated people are “dangerous and scary.” My students, after starting to work with incarcerated people, come to find that incarcerated people are some of the warmest, kindest, and most open individuals and this class collaboration becomes an incredible life changing experience for all involved.

Today, the merger processes of giants like Netflix and Warner Bros. point toward a massive monopoly in content production. As an academic and documentarian, I wonder: in this “content factory” system where profound stories are often sacrificed to algorithms, will there be a crack left for independent documentary filmmaking to breathe?

Yes, this is a terrible development for all media makers, not just documentary filmmakers. We have just come out of a real Golden Age of documentaries where doc films could be seen on all major streamers and in many venues online. This environment still exists, but there has been a restriction coming from these kinds of mergers and from some outlets like VICE News ending entirely and PBS losing nearly all its government funding, for example.

There still is room for doc filmmakers to breathe but the merger and political situation is currently very bad for all media in the United States. It may be some years before the situation improved. But documentaries are still being made and seem on major outlets, on streamers, and on TV and in theaters. There is still incredible work being made and seen by audiences.

We are in an era where hybrid workflows involving AI, Virtual Production (VP), and VFX are being discussed even in documentary cinema. In an age where technology is so dominant, where will be the “final sanctuary” for documentary film to protect those “unrecordable” and “unimitable” aspects of the human spirit?

AI is an enormous threat for documentary film and journalism, as it is for all forms of media. Everything can be faked now, and in the US, there is also a distrust of media especially media coming from journalists. So trust in media and a trust in journalists and documentary filmmakers is extremely important as is an education about AI is crucial starting at a young age. If there is a “final
sanctuary” for documentary film it must exist in this trusted space by filmmakers with strong ethics who are not using AI, VP, or VFX.

How do you perceive the language of documentary filmmaking in Turkey? Are there names you follow or a “Turkish story” that makes you say, “I wish I had been the one to tell this”?

I’ve only visited Turkey a few times usually enroute to Afghanistan, but I think the country is an incredible fascinating place with a rich cultural heritage that rivals Egypt. I would love to tell the stories of these wonderful sites like the ancient site Neolithic GöbekliTepe that are much less known than the pyramids. I think there could be an incredible documentary about the work being done in Turkey by Turkish archaeologists to save and preserve these ancient sites.

Gobeklitepe is an archaeological site in Sanliurfa, Turkey – stock photo

Over the years, you have witnessed many things—from the dusty archaeological sites of Afghanistan to the war-weary streets of Yemen, and from the cold walls of American prisons to the heart of geopolitical crises. At the end of this journey, does Brent Huffman still look at the world through the eyes of a director, or is he now primarily a human rights advocate?

Another great question! As an artist, I also paint – I have to say I view the world through both lenses – as a human rights and social justice advocate but also as a creative director/artist. Ultimately, I achieve both things through my filmmaking – I feel you can tell documentary stories in a way that allows audiences to feel what the subjects in the films feel – see themselves in the stories on screen.

Audiences can feel deep empathy for subjects in documentaries that they do not know, that may live thousands of miles away in another part of the world. And by feeling this empathy, they can be motivated to help change a bad situation and help people whose lives are in danger. Audiences can help save ancient cites, as they did in Saving Mes Aynak, advocate for prison reform and for the release of wrongfully convicted people in my prison classes, and help support women risking their lives to save heritage in Yemen. And finally, to see Yingying, from Finding Yingying, as the incredible and brilliant young woman that she was instead of as a murder victim.

Information Integrity and the Public Sphere: Contemporary Challenges of Journalism in a Post-Truth World

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Interview Series: New Media, Digital Culture and Algorithm | Interviewer: Gokhan Colak

Marcelle Chagas Do Monte | Journalist, founder of Rede JP, and Researcher at the Mozilla Foundation’s Tech and Society Program

Journalistic Trajectory and Professional Positioning

How did your journey into journalism begin? What social or personal motivations were decisive in your choice of this profession?

My journey into journalism began at the intersection of social inequality and informational injustice. Growing up in Brazil, I witnessed how entire communities—Black, peripheral, Indigenous, and favela residents—were systematically misrepresented or simply rendered invisible by mainstream media. At the same time, there was a striking lack of journalists from these groups in the main spaces of news production. This absence was not neutral: it shaped public policies, influenced the allocation of resources, and defined who was considered worthy of attention, credibility, and protection.

Journalism became, for me, a tool to confront these structural silences and to build bridges between lived experience, scientific knowledge, and public debate.

How did your journey into journalism begin? What social or personal motivations were decisive in your choice of this profession?

My professional trajectory has been shaped by work in newsrooms, in science communication, and later in the fields of digital rights and technology policy. These experiences revealed how power operates through information flows and how narratives can both reproduce historical inequalities and challenge them.

Today, I position myself at the intersection of journalism, communication, and digital inclusion, with a focus on rights advocacy. I work on mapping local flows of information and disinformation, especially in vulnerable territories, using participatory methodologies. This path led me to join the Mozilla Foundation as a Fellow, where I investigate not only informational ecosystems in traditional territories but also community perceptions of artificial intelligence. I understand journalism not as a neutral observer, but as a democratic infrastructure with social responsibility, particularly in contexts marked by historical exclusion and algorithmic asymmetries.

Truth, Information Integrity, and Disinformation

How do you define the concept of “information integrity” in the context of journalism? What does this approach seek to achieve beyond traditional fact-checking practices?,

Information integrity concerns the health of the entire informational ecosystem: who produces knowledge, which voices are amplified or silenced, which interests structure the circulation of content, and how technologies shape visibility. There is no information integrity without diversity of voices, protection against manipulation, the مواجهة of hate speech, and accountability for the actors who organize this system.

In this sense, information integrity seeks to ensure transparency, plurality, contextualization, and informational justice throughout the entire information cycle—from production and dissemination to interpretation and social impacts. It is about creating the conditions for society to sustain a public sphere grounded in facts, plural, trustworthy, and free from systemic manipulation.

Based on your field experience, what kinds of impacts have you observed disinformation having on local communities? How do you assess the local manifestations of misinformation produced at a global scale?

In my fieldwork in favelas, quilombola territories, Indigenous communities, and urban peripheries, I have observed how disinformation deepens pre-existing vulnerabilities. False narratives about health, climate change, elections, and public security circulate locally, combining with historical distrust toward institutions. Content produced at a global scale—such as conspiracy theories, scientific denialism, or anti-vaccine campaigns—is reconfigured according to local cultural, linguistic, and affective codes. This process gives rise to what I call “territorialized regimes of disinformation,” in which global narratives are reprogrammed to operate locally, producing deep and long-lasting social effects.

Digitalization, Platforms, and Algorithmic Power

We observe that digital platforms have significantly transformed journalistic practice. Do you consider this transformation primarily a democratizing opportunity, or has it created new forms of dependency and control?

Digital platforms have unprecedentedly expanded possibilities for publication and participation. However, this democratization is structurally ambiguous. While historically marginalized groups have gained new means of expression, they now operate under opaque regimes of algorithmic governance, extractive data economies, and engagement architectures that privilege polarization.

Field research in Indigenous and quilombola territories shows that digital trust still relies primarily on relationships of proximity and affectivity, in contrast to the low levels of trust in formal institutions. Platforms have ceased to be mere technical intermediaries and have become central political actors in defining what is visible, legitimate, and relevant in the public sphere, guided by market logics rather than democratic principles.

What consequences does the algorithmic determination of news visibility have for the structure of the public sphere and the culture of democratic debate?

As the coordinator of a journalistic organization, the Black Journalists Network for Diversity in Communication, I observe that the growing dependence of journalism on these infrastructures also strains the editorial autonomy of news outlets and collectives. The result is not only the proliferation of disinformation, but a structural erosion of the foundations that sustain public dialogue.

Inequalities, Representation, and Media Diversity

How do racial, class-based, and geographical inequalities within the media landscape shape news production processes and forms of representation?

Racial, class, and territorial inequalities are not external to journalism: they are embedded in newsroom composition, agenda-setting, source selection, and narrative framing. When decision-making spaces remain socially homogeneous, entire realities are interpreted through perspectives that fail to recognize their complexity and legitimacy.

In Brazil, research we have conducted—most recently in partnership with Thomson Media on the sustainability of independent journalism—has shown that outlets led by underrepresented populations receive the least funding and face the greatest barriers to inclusion in institutional circuits of knowledge production. Partnerships with the State University of Rio de Janeiro have also highlighted the low presence of Black professionals and women in the country’s major newsrooms.

Do you view diversity and representation in the media more as an ethical responsibility, or as a structural necessity for journalism to sustain its public function?

Thus, diversity is not merely an ethical issue but a structural condition for journalism to fulfill its public function. Without epistemic diversity, it is impossible to fully understand social reality, identify emerging risks, or build trust with populations that are simultaneously the most affected by disinformation and the least represented in media systems. Representation entails redistributing not only visibility, but also authority in the production of meaning.

Ethics, Pressures, and Future Perspectives

In the context of censorship, self-censorship, and economic pressures, what do you see as the most fundamental structural challenge journalists face today?

The most profound structural challenge facing journalism today is the convergence of economic precarity, platform dependency, and political polarization. Professionals operate under financial instability, legal harassment, digital surveillance, and coordinated disinformation campaigns, which foster both explicit censorship and self-censorship. These conditions weaken investigative journalism, long-term reporting, and the capacity to hold power accountable.

In the context of advancing artificial intelligence, automation, and data-driven journalism, the future of the profession will depend on political and ethical choices. These technologies can strengthen investigation, expand multilingual access to information, and support complex analysis, but they can also intensify power concentration, narrative standardization, and large-scale manipulation.

In light of developments such as artificial intelligence, automation, and data-driven journalism, what kind of future do you foresee for journalism over the next decade?

In the coming decades, the role of journalism as a public good will be increasingly contested. I see as central the strengthening of community-rooted media, philanthropic models for the sustainability of the profession, open infrastructures, and AI approaches grounded in human rights and social justice. The future of journalism will depend on its ability to rebuild trust, pluralism, and information integrity as pillars of democratic life.

The Future of Journalism in a Digital World: A Conversation with Caitlin Barker at the Intersection of Culture, Politics and Society

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Interviewer: Gokhan Colak

Caitlin Barker | Journalist, Writer and Radio Host

What were the key turning points that led you into journalism? How do you personally define the relationship between storytelling and journalism?

I’ve wanted to be a storyteller since I was little. Before I could even read and write, I was always making up little stories and telling them to my parents and friends. But journalism came into my life when I was in college. At the time, I had really just been looking for a job, and I saw that my college radio station was hiring, so I applied. Initially I thought I was just going to be a secretary for the station, not actually behind a microphone, but one thing led to another, and two years later I was hosting my own music show, anchoring the news program and contributing stories to it weekly.

Those stories were what really made me fall in love with journalism, because I got to talk to so many interesting people, whether over the phone or in-person, and I learned that storytelling doesn’t have to be limited to fiction. There are so many amazing stories out there, closer than you would ever think they are, and so many amazing people who are so excited to tell them. To me, that’s what makes journalism so special.

In your work at The Click, you write at the intersection of culture, politics, and society. How do you see the relationship between these fields, and what role should journalism play within this intersection?

Culture, politics, and society are all things that are constantly changing, and being a journalist covering those topics means you have to keep up with how those things impact each other. Personally, I think a lot of media is connected to the political climate during the time which it was produced. You can see that when you follow trends of certain themes gaining popularity and then fading away in the pop culture world. Whether it’s a positive or a negative reflection of policy and society, I think to be a journalist covering these things, you have to be able to pick up on patterns like that.

Today, journalism is increasingly practiced through digital platforms. Do you see digital journalism primarily as a space of opportunity, or as a source of concern?

I think digital platforms are majorly spaces for opportunity. Nowadays, there are so many digital outlets for different beats and niche interests, which I absolutely consider an opportunity for journalists, especially for freelancers and new journalists who are trying to find their footing in the field. In my opinion, the more options for places to pitch, the better!

Based on your experience in local journalism, how do you evaluate the differences between local media and national/international media in terms of news production and responsibility?

I think it’s both a responsibility and a privilege to be a local journalist, because you have access not only to the people and the places on which you’re reporting, but also access to knowing what kinds of stories are important to the people in those areas. On some level, the stories that they care about, you probably also care about because you live there. But it’s also important to always keep your ears open, always be listening for the local stories that other people aren’t finding. Those are the ones that aren’t going to make it to national news, but they might be the ones that are most important to the community being impacted. Those are usually the stories the end up being my favorites.

How has your background in radio broadcasting influenced your approach to journalism? What perspectives has it given you in terms of voice, rhythm, and narrative style?

Part of why I love working in multiple mediums as a journalist is because broadcast and radio journalism often operate on different narrative structures than written journalism. I often find myself considering how I might produce a written story differently if it were on the radio and vice versa. I think practicing both, and being able to experiment with different angles and structures has definitely made me a better storyteller.

In your work on popular culture, how do you observe its intersections with political, economic, and social processes? In your view, how does popular culture function as a key to understanding contemporary society?

I touched on this earlier, but I definitely find it beneficial to trace patterns in media as they relate to the time they were produced. One of the ways I’ve looked into the most is music. If you trace music through the decades, you find so much that is an overt response to political climates, societal and beauty standards, and really any issue the artists saw in the world around them, whether it’s 1920s jazz, 1970s rock, or 2000s hip-hop. I think the same can be said when you look at what tropes are popular in movies and books across the decades. If you know to look for the places where art imitates life, you’ll really start seeing how all of these topics are connected.

One of the biggest challenges journalists face today is combating disinformation and manipulation. How do you position journalistic ethics within this context?

As the presenter of information, you have to be extremely meticulous with word choice, especially when you’re reporting on something as polarized as politics. When you use words that carry strong positive or negative connotations, you have to make sure you’re using it in a way that is presenting information rather than implicitly telling the audience how to feel. That’s why I find it super important to have a network of other journalists that you can share your work with, who will check you on little things like that that might seem unimportant or tedious. It always helps to have a second set of eyes that can catch the things you might miss yourself.

What place do “human stories” hold in your approach to news? What elements make a subject worth turning into a story?

This sounds cliche, but a subject becomes a story when it has a beginning, middle, and end. It needs to have a person, place, thing, or idea to follow, because that’s what keeps the reader or listener or viewer interested. There needs to be stakes— if X happens or doesn’t happen, it will impact the subject in Y way. As I mentioned, human interest stories are some of my favorites, because they really have the power to transform a subject that someone might not think they’re interested in, to something they just can’t put down. They just have to have something that hooks them in and keeps them invested.

How do you think the rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies will affect journalists and the journalism profession? How might this transformation reshape news production, the role of the journalist, and the trust relationship with audiences?

Journalism is a field that truly has an unknown future. Artificial intelligence definitely contributes to its unpredictability, so I think it’s something to be cautious of, but I also think that a lot of people, by nature, really value human-produced work. One of the things I love about radio, for example, is that it’s so much more special when there’s a person live in the studio. It feels more personal, as do stories that are written by real people. Humans can capture emotions in a way that AI can’t, and I don’t think we should downplay that fact. If anything, I think we should count on those human connections and continue to consume human-made media even more with the rise of AI.

You are continuing your journalism education while actively working in the field. How does the relationship between academia and practice operate for you?

I hold my education and my professional work with the same weight, especially since journalism is a field where you really learn through practicing. So much of studying journalism is hands-on work that allows you to actually produce stories and receive professional feedback on them, while also learning about ethics and being able to make really amazing connections. Whether you’re studying, practicing professionally, or both, every piece you produce makes you a better journalist, so I try to treat every story as a learning experience, whether it’s for my degree or my career.

Finally, what advice would you give to the new generation of journalists? What does it mean to be a journalist in the digital age?

Consume the media you want to produce. Find journalists to look up to. Make connections. Don’t be embarrassed to reach out first. Take advantage of your locality, especially if you don’t see it represented in media and journalism a lot. As a journalist, I’ve been so lucky to be coming into this field in the digital age, because I’ve made so many connections and met so many great people through social media and going to school online. Many of them I’ve never met in-person, but they’ve been vital in my career. I would definitely advise new journalists to take as much advantage of that as they can.

The Conscience of the Abandoned Moment: On Memory, Silence, and Resistance with Ed Kashi

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Interview Series: Visual Witnessing, Documentary Practice and Public Memory | Interviewer: Tugba Bahar

ED KASHI | Photojournalist Filmmaker, Speaker, and Educator

Ed Kashi’s journey, spanning over four decades, is far more than a professional record of witnessing; it is the manifestation of a profound reverence for the world’s diverse cultures and an unshakeable belief in storytelling’s capacity to heal our shared reality.
While maintaining a ‘front-row seat’ to the most intimate and shattering moments of the human condition, Kashi has navigated the world with a camera that serves as a silent guide into the heart of different civilizations, currently arriving at the most refined
harvest of his career. Having created a philosophical rupture in documentary photography with his theory of the ‘Abandoned Moment’which honors the chaotic flow of life and intuitive surrender over Henri Cartier-Bresson’s rationalist ‘Decisive
Moment’the artist is currently safeguarding his legacy as a ‘gardener of memory,’ entrusting his vast 45-year analog and digital archive to the Briscoe Center. Even as he defends the moral credibility of photography against the rising ‘digital noise’ of artificial
intelligence, he observes the very lands where he was censored in 1991 with a transformative maturity, now returning as a distinguished jury member. This conversation is a profound search for human truth, navigating from haptic memory to
the ethical boundaries of ‘advocacy journalism,’ and from the political weight of silence in the Middle East to the realization of hope as a radical necessity.

You have entrusted your 45-year archive to the Briscoe Center with the meticulous care of a ‘gardener of memory.’ Following this monumental handover, where do you perceive yourself within the narrative, and what is your current ‘inner climate’? Does this feel like a final farewell to a chapter, or a new beginning, unburdened and liberated?

By donating the main elements of my archive, I’ve accomplished a few important things all at once. I am freed up physically from my archive, especially in this more digital and remote working environment we find ourselves in today. It provides a
secure resting place form my legacy, so gives me a certain peace of mind. My work is now accessible to researchers, educators, media, students, etc, so it confirms the reason I do this work, to illuminate and capture moments in time and history. Finally, this act is like a puncuation mark in my life and in my work. I can feel secure that up to this point my work has meaning and a place, yet I can continue to create and contribute to that legacy.

IMAGE: FOTODOK Book Club: Abandoned Moments — ED KASHI

In an era where AI relentlessly perfects the visual, could the ‘errors’ and randomness inherent in your ‘Abandoned Moment’ philosophy be the most ontologically reliable elementsof a photograph? Is defending the ‘mistake’ a form of philosophical resistance against digital forgery?

That is an interesting idea, but that’s not my intention with Abandoned Moments. It’s really about the freeform experience of making images when you’re not in control of the moment. I will say that with AI and digital manipulation, authentic images will gain more power and importance.

IMAGE: The Game of Life — ED KASHI

In “The Game of Life,” your choice to ‘paint’ digital images with physical baseball materials (pine tar, sunflower seeds, etc.) suggests a haptic search for roots within an assimilated identity. Do you find that the clarity of memory resides in these physical residues rather than in the precision of pixels?

The Game of Life was my attempt to mix physical elements, photographs and ephemera to explore my relationship to fatherhood, the loss of a father, the importance of baseball as a binding source for myself and my son, and the acceptance of being an immigrant. I did not grow up thinking of myself as an immigrant. Baseball was my babysitter. I grew up in the physical World as a human and as a young photographer, working in the darkroom, etc. This project was a chance to combine both worlds into a deeply personal statement.

Within your ideal of candid intimacy, does the mere presence of the camera eventually force the subject into a ‘performance’ of naturalness? How do you remain certain that your presence as an observer has not fundamentally transformed the essence of the scene?

It is impossible for my presence to not transform a situation, but with candid intimacy, my goal is to create images that leave the viewer feeling like they are there but my camera is not. I’ve found that some people do perform and some are shy and almost
avoid the camera. Some of that comes down to individual personalities, the context and cultural mores.

While documenting the process of aging, how do you frame the tension between the deformation of the body and the continuity of the soul? In iconic frames like the final moments of Maxine Peters, can photography truly capture a sense of ‘timelessness’ while overcoming the physical toll of time?

I learned early on in that project that I would need to find a visual language that avoided the decay and sadness of growing old. I also accepted that the wrinkles of an aging body could be beautiful, and like Maxine’s last moments, death could be a
beautiful moment, especially when surrounded by loved ones and in a secure and dignified manner.

IMAGE: Ed Kashi – The VII Foundation

Through your work with Talking Eyes Media, do you ever encounter a dilemma of aesthetics: can a photograph being ‘too beautiful’ diminish the raw power of the tragedy it depicts? Does aesthetic perfection risk trapping the viewer in a state of
passive admiration rather than mobilizing them toward action?

This question has been raised many times in the past, especially in the context of photojournalism’s coverage of conflict and human tragedy. This conversation has definitely created change in the profession, forcing many practitioners to search for new ways to tell these kinds of stories and shed light on these difficult issues. For myself, I always look to preserve the dignity of the people I photograph, while showing their situation in a truthful and impactful way. The larger concern now is the sheer volüme of imagery that people are seeing, plus the violent imagery that we now accept and take for granted in popular culture. I am constantly amazing at how much violence we see in streaming shows and mainstream movies. Are we getting inured
and numb? At least with still images you are forced to look, dwell, think, read a caption to gain more context, and ultimately allow the brain to focus more acutely.

IMAGE: Workshops & Events — ED KASHI

For 45 years, you have witnessed the world’s darkest corners and deepest trajedies from a ‘front-row seat.’ Does such proximity to suffering eventually create a kind of ‘visual callousness,’ or does every release of the shutter touch the wound as if for the
first time? After all you have seen, is maintaining hope for humanity a vision you choose, or a necessity you are bound to?

I remain hopeful about humanity, but these days it’s getting harder to hold onto this more positive view. As I continue to make images and tell visual stories, I hold onto my values and goals; to tell human stories without hiding from the tough issues, while
also showing the resilience, dignity and power of people and organizations to do better. I see it more as solutions journalism, or advocacy storytelling.

What does it feel like to transition from being a censored witness in Diyarbakır in 1991 to a jury member evaluating Turkey’s visual landscape in 2025? How do you interpret being on the side of the ‘selector’ today, when you were once pursuing a
reality that was forbidden to even be recorded?

If you live and work long enough, you get to see how dramatically certain places, issues and relationships can change. In relation specifically to Turkey, it’s a government and culture that continues to demonize and discriminate against it’s
Kurdish minority. What makes Turkey so important and truly one of the most amazing places on earth, is it’s not just one thing. Turkish people represent a wide range of political views, progressive and inclusive sentiments and a highly educated class of
people.

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons

How do you interpret the widespread silence within the art world regarding contemporary Middle Eastern conflicts? As an ‘advocacy journalist’ with roots in Baghdad, does ‘witnessing’ begin for you at the moral boundary where the luxury of
neutrality ends? Is silence, for an artist, ultimately a desertion of truth?

Having roots in the Middle East but growing up as an American, it has been my work that has brought me to these places of my ancestors and forced me to recognize my heritage and look at the present situation there. It’s a complex place where too many
people are prisoners of their own histories. I am thankful my father came to America, so I could grow up without that baggage. In terms of the situation more specifically in Gaza and Israel, there is no logic or reasoning for what has happened and it’s hard to
imagine Israel rehabiliting it’s standing in the world anytime soon. Having worked in Israel and Palestine close to 20 times since 1991, I have also found it difficult to continue to find hope or understand how to tell this story. The cruelty and growing
hatred. The dehumaniziation of the “other” has only served the extremists on both sides. As a photojournalist, I try to remain neutral in my public stance, which is a paramount ethical value to maintain. As an artist, there is more freedom to express
personal opinions in both your work and your public stance. Having said that, I remain appalled by the actions of Israel and also of Hamas. As I stated in 1996, working on my project about messianic jewish settlers in the West Bank, both the settlers and
Hamas are obstacles to peace. I hold that view now more then ever.

Much like the defiant boy soaring over the bonfire on your book’s cover, what do tens of thousands of frames whisper to you today? Has this ‘living dossier’ brought you to a state of final peace, or has it propelled you into a deeper curiosity fueled by the
‘abandoned’ energy of uncertainty?

I search for inner peace on a Daily basis and it’s a struggle that I know I’ll carry with me until the end. Isn’t it a natural part of being human? My experiences and the images and stories I’ve created bring a kind of inner peace, yet they are a constant
reminder of the hard work we must all do to try to make our World a better place.

IMAGE: A Period in Time by Ed Kashi | Photo Article

From Travel Writing to Local News: A Professional Journey with Hailey Fulmer

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Interview Series: Creative Writing Adventures of Young Journalists

Academic Journey

What motivated you the most to pursue a graduate degree in journalism at NYU?

I was motivated to pursue a graduate degree in journalism at NYU because of my passion for storytelling. I wanted to pursue a career where I could have a platform to write and showcase my work, but more importantly, I wanted to make a difference with my voice. I enjoy providing others the opportunity to share their stories and the value they bring.

I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree in English at Mount St. Mary’s University in May of 2024. I spent the first month of that summer job searching; however, I felt like something was missing. Many of my family and friends encouraged me to become a teacher; however, I knew it wasn’t for me. I felt very lost in my future career at first, because I knew I loved to write, but unfortunately, an oversaturated job market was not in my favor. I pursued an English degree because I wanted to pursue writing, and I was not willing to give that up.

With further discussion with family and friends, the idea of pursuing my master’s had been thrown around, but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do yet. I decided to set up a virtual meeting with one of my career counselors for further guidance. He encouraged me to apply to NYU’s AJO (American Journalism Online). With only about a month until the deadline, I applied and was accepted. I never thought that this was the path I was going to take, but everything about the program– the community, support system, and the academic growth– I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Creative Background & Journalism

How do you think your background in creative editing and theater has influenced your approach to news writing?

I enjoy creating visual scenes that appeal to a reader’s eye, and I believe that creative writing and theater have helped me express a range of emotions in my reporting. In theater, I enjoyed acting out and studying scenes that express vulnerable emotions. During my undergrad, I wasa part of a play called The Wolves, which was about a group of high school soccer players experiencing young adulthood and navigating their issues. I played the goalie, a character who is a perfectionist and suffers from anxiety attacks. In one scene, I was on stage alone, and my character had a moment of breaking down. It was just me on the stage, and I had to capture the intense emotions– hyperventilating, crying, screaming, and anger. With creative writing, you create different emotions and images, but in the form of writing. Even if I am writing a hard news story, you need to be able to garner a reader’s attention, so having the ability to carry heavyemotions in your writing is important.

Travel Writing Inspiration

How did your study abroad experience in Dublin shape your interest in travel writing? Could you share a standout memory from your time there?

For one, studying abroad is probably one of the best experiences you could ever have in your young adulthood. No matter what you are studying, it really opens your mind, and it not only helps shape your academic and career goals, but you also gain so much personal growth. I decided to do it in my fall senior year, which is not typically ideal, but before I started my college journey, I told myself that I would do it, and it was then or never. While I was there, my professor assigned us assignments that catered to Irish culture– we not only wrote, but we also read a lot of travel writing. One of the stories, “Europe Through an Open Door” by Rick Steves, is a travel book that encourages travelers to experience what is beyond typical tourist destinations. This story opened my mindto focus on destinations that are underappreciated. So, when I would write, I made sure to find experiences that were as unique as possible.

I would sit alone in a small, quiet pub away from the city and learn some of its history. My friends and I did a ‘staycation’ in a small town called Sligo. Our Airbnb was in the middle of nowhere, and we had to walk almost an hour to get to town. We wanted to go to a small Irish pub down the road, which was difficult to get to since taxis rarely came out where we were. Finally, when our taxi driver pulled up to our Airbnb, he laughed when we told him we were going to ‘Ellen’s Pub’. It made sense when we arrived; it looked like a shack-like building. We ended up chatting with some locals, and a small Irish band gave us an intimate concert in the backroom– it was dark, and it felt as if I was sitting around a campfire listening to classic Irish tunes. Moments like those give you opportunities to write about personal and engaging experiences.

The connections that you can make while exploring another country create memories you will never forget, eager to write down quickly in your journal, which will later turninto a developed narrative.

Storytelling Approach

When covering topics like the job market, do you prioritize human stories or data in your reporting? What advantages do you find in your approach?

Covering topics like the job market, I tend to prioritize human stories rather than reporting. I mostly do this because these types of stories are personal to me, and I think people’s stories are more raw instead of throwing a reader a bunch of data to read. Not that a lot of data is bad, but for me, I enjoy focusing on the story aspect because those emotions from real people get reactions from other people. When you get reactions from other people, they are more inclined to advocate what you are advocating for, and then you know you have made a difference. I actually just had a job interview, and one of my stories that talks about the job market caught the hiring manager’s eye. He referenced it, which made me feel really good because it’s like, if a hiring manager brought up one of my stories I wrote about the decline of the job market, then I clearly made some kind of difference.

I also enjoy telling the stories of others because it amplifies their voice and makes them feel seen and heard. I have recently interviewed a lot of political figures in my area, and they talked about how they feel about the current political environment. They shared where they came from, their journey to how they got towhere they are today and what has inspired them in their careers. Being given a platform to share these stories is very rewarding.

AI and News Production

How do you evaluate the impact of artificial intelligence (e.g., Google Gemini) on news production processes, particularly in stories like Marc Robin and Fulton Theater?

I evaluate a lot of this impact by asking myself how we can use it, without getting rid of the human aspect of the craft. Although many of us disagree with artificial intelligence, it stillcontinues to evolve, so we may eventually reach a point where it’s difficult to avoid it. When I interviewed Marc Robin, the current artistic director of Fulton Theater, he talked about how they started to incorporate the Google Gemini with grant research, so it really speeds up thatprocess and leaves more room for creative development on the theater’s end, which I think is great.

If we can use it separately to leave room to further develop the craft of journalism, then journalists can further elevate their stories. In my interview with Robin, he expressed hisconcerns over the overuse of AI. Artificial intelligence is not able to mimic human emotion, so similarly to theater, as journalists, you are expressing the emotions of other people. 

There are many ethical boundaries along with AI, but there is so much practical use to it. I think many people, especially in this industry, may be opposed to it. But, I would say in my program, I have learned a lot about its practical use, and I have found myself utilizing it as a research tool.

Local Journalism & Audience Connection

In focusing on local and specific news like election security in Pennsylvania, what do you think is the most effective way to build an emotional connection with your readers?

I focus a lot of my coverage on policies and issues that are important to communities in Pennsylvania. I want readers to be able to feel how much the story is rooted in their community— specifically Pennsylvania as a swing state, there is a lot at stake with elections. Right now, there are specific areas that are seeing a lot more blue especially after the No Kings Day protest.

I see the passion in the people that I talk to, and I translate that passion into a story. A lot of the local politicians I talk to have families, and they see a lot of issues that directly impact their children and their experiences, so translating that in my reporting carries a lot of weight. For
me, the most effective way I have found to build this emotional connection is to talk to local people who are passionate about specific issues and get their story out there. I also incorporate the “what’s next” aspect of the story, basically what could happen if a certain outcome would occur with a policy or election. It develops a connection for readers because these issues may directly impact them personally.

Political Coverage Insights

What were some key findings from your work on campaign ads during the 2024 election cycle? What do you pay attention to when reporting on such content?

Many of my key findings were based on how meaningless the ads were, despite Pennsylvania being a swing state. I paid a lot of attention to how much each candidate was spending on political ads. Despite the increased expenditures from previous elections, people didn’t seem to care for it. I think this comes from people already deep into their beliefs and wanting to see more action. People that I talked to rather see the money being spent on more beneficial projects. It’s important to pay attention to what people actually care about, because you see a lot of things that politicians say or advertise things, but there may be little action on their end. You have to really pay attention to what people actually care about when reporting crucial moments in an election season.

Future Perspectives

Are there new areas you plan to focus on in your journalism career? For example, digital journalism, data journalism, or freelance work?

My goal one day is to get into investigatihtve journalism. I really want to invest my time in underrepresented communities. A dream of mine is to go into film and produce a documentary to cover the work I do. Kiki Mordi’s work as an investigative journalist has been really inspiring to me. She produced a BBC documentary called Sex for Grades exposing lecturers in Ghana and Nigeria that were sexually harassing their students. In the documentary she also shared her own experience of sexual abuse and harassment.

She experienced a lot of misogynistic attacks, which says how much the media can try to silence your work. I look up to her because despite attacks online, she pushed through the people that tried to discredit her. For me, I want to think about the community that I am doing this work for and how they are impacted because it’ll always remind me how much change you can really bring with your work.

An Ecology of Words: Jordan Rosenfeld’s Journey From Writing Craft Books to Eco-Thriller

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Interview Series: “The Ecology of Narrative Between Writing and Nature”

You mentioned that Fallout was the result of a nine-year-long effort. Which phase of this process was the most challenging for you?

I didn’t write it in one pass. It was a process of starting and stopping as the ideas unfolded, and I made time in between my work and childrearing. I think the hardest part was figuring out how I was going to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion without being predictable, or too complicated or stretching plausibility.

How did you craft the psychological connection between Justine’s involvement with the eco-anarchist group and the loss of her child?

The character of Justine already has a connection to the eco-anarchist group before the loss of her child, but it seemed to clear to me that as a character who has suffered her worst fear and greatest loss, she now has “nothing to lose” in a sense. So it made sense that she is now freed in a new way to pursue this group that takes huge risks in pursuit of their goals. But it’s all, in its own way, a part of her avoiding her grief. The book is essentially trying to get her to face that grief.

The novel questions the “dirty” decisions that environmental movements sometimes must make. Do you think activism inherently involves such moral grey areas?

I don’t think of activism as requiring moral grey areas, per se—I think of it as answering and addressing the moral gray areas of larger systemic issues and systems of power that dominate. To undermine systems of power of means to “look” morally grey when really it’s that they’re forced to sidestep traditional, societal and even sometimes “legal” means of achieving their ends because they don’t have the power.

What kind of sensitivity did it require to address ecology and motherhood together?

I wrote from my own experiences as a mother (while not one who experienced child loss directly, I could quite easily connect to that feeling), and as someone watching climate change ravage my own state and the World. Where other kinds of “sensitivity” came to play was to make sure I wasn’t representing anyone of a different race or experience in a harmful way, so I engaged a sensitivity reader.

Your nonfiction books, especially Make a Scene and Writing the Intimate Character, focus on scene creation and character depth. Which of these techniques did you particularly try to implement in your novel Fallout?

I’ve written about writing craft and taught writing for over 20 years, so I think I’ve pretty much internalized these concepts now. Thus I’m not “focusing” on these particular techniques as I write—the story is just playing out in my mind. I think, if anything, I’m starting to focus more intentionally at the sentence level lately, however, as I feel I have the others pretty dialed in.

Your upcoming book, The Sound of Story, focuses on voice and tone. What aspects did you pay attention to when crafting character voices in Fallout?

It was important to me that the characters sounded unique, different from one another, particularly my three main co-protagonists, but also the many women of Project Nemesis. So, for example, I made Zoe a little more terse and to the point, and Justine more longwinded, and Hannah to sound like her youthful age. I tried to think about their lexicon and syntax given their experiences and jobs, etc. But I wrote Sound of Story after Fallout (Though I have been teaching courses on the topic).

Your novel highlights issues faced by low-income and Black communities in the context of environmental justice. What motivated you to include this theme in your fiction?

I credit my parents for always caring about justice of all kinds, and for raising me with maybe a little more awareness than the average person in my position. I also credit a lot of activists and writers that I’ve been exposed to over the last say 15-20 years for having really taught me how to fill in gaps in my own white privileged knowledge. But also reading. When you read widely and by people of all ethnicities and life experiences, it hopefully expands your mind to look at the realities of injustice all around us.

What narrative possibilities did writing an ecological crisis story through a journalist character offer you? How do you think a journalist character adds depth to an ecological crisis-themed narrative?

Well, I think writers are always creating ciphers for the experience of being a writer and I am a journalist, though not an investigative one like Justine, so it wasn’t a total stretch. I needed her to be persistent, someone who doesn’t give up easily, who has tenacity and strives for the truth. Journalism worked on several levels. It also gave her a way “in” to a group that otherwise would probably never have accepted her.

How did you maintain long-term creative motivation while writing your novel? Did your book, A Writer’s Guide to Persistence, serve as a guiding resource during this process?


Long term creative motivation is a process of coming back to my writing practice again and again. In in fact, part of what it means to me now (at nearly age 51) to be a writer is that: you start and stop, and start and stop, and sometimes the stopping goes on longer than before, but I have always always returned to it. I think A Writer’s Guide to Persistence was one of the ways I came back to my writing after my son was born (he’s now 17).

You have taught creative writing courses through the University of Oslo and Brown University’s summer program, as well as  teaching online classes and keeping the Substack newsletter, Writing In the Pause. How do you discuss novel writing alongside technical writing practices within these platforms? How do they complement each other?

I teach many aspects of novel writing through my classes, and through my writing books. My Substack blog is where I process aspects of writing craft and personal experiences at the same time, hopefully in ways that keeps it from being dull. I like to talk about process almost more than craft these days, because I’ve grown very interested in the different ways we approach writing, and how we can keep ourselves creatively fulfilled even when so many terrible things are going on in the World around us.

In case you would like it, here is my most current bio:
Jordan Rosenfeld is author of seven books on the craft of writing including How to Write a Page-Turner, the bestselling Make a Scene, Writing the Intimate Character, A Writer’s Guide to Persistence, Writing Deep Scenes and Write Free. She is also the author of three novels Fallout, Forged in Grace and Women in Red. Jordan’s articles and essays have been published in hundreds of publications, such as The Atlantic, LitHub, The New York Times, The Rumpus, Salon, and Scientific American. She teaches online writing classes and at numerous writing conferences, such as the Writers’ Digest Conference, the San Francisco Writers Conference, and the Redwood Writers Conference. She is a freelance manuscript editor and writing coach, and author of the popular Substack, Writing in the Pause. http://www.jordanrosenfeld.net

Crafting Stories with Data: Lizzie Walsh’s Journey in Climate and Health Journalism

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Interview Series: Narrating for the Public Good: Journalism, Data, and Responsibility

I. From Advertising to Journalism: A Story of Transformation

How do you think your five years as a copywriter in the healthcare sector have shaped your writing style and journalistic language today?

Most of my copywriting job was combing through clinical trial data of new pharmaceutical drugs and turning those facts into something that made sense to doctors and consumers. It was a tricky task to balance the desires of the client, who obviously wanted their drug to sell, and making sure my data visualizations and summaries met all these different regulatory standards. But at the end of the day, once you figure out a way to “tell the story”, you just tell it over and over: copy and paste it into a banner ad, a doctor’s office pamphlet, a video script. That story only changes when you get new clinical trial data or start working on something completely new.

After five years of working on different drugs and with different data, I got better at writing about facts in a compelling and clear way. It helped me learn how to visualize the story that the numbers tell, which I do a lot of in my reporting today. And though working with pharmaceutical clients is different from working with editors, it helped me get used to writing feedback. Those clients didn’t care about ripping apart my copy and hurting my feelings, so I developed a pretty thick skin when it comes to editing.

Working with FDA bureaucracy gave you a behind-the-scenes look at the system. Which aspects of the system did you gain the most insight into, and how do these experiences reflect in your journalism?

I talk about this a lot to anyone who will listen: our for-profit healthcare system is so broken in so many ways. There are so many players in the healthcare world: you’ve got the pharma companies looking to make money and beat out the competitor drug, doctors trying to make the right decision for their patient in a crowded drug landscape, and the patient, but you’ve also got a whole host of other intermediary players all trying to accomplish a slightly different thing. And usually that thing isn’t just trying to keep people healthy at a reasonable cost to the patient.

I think what I took away from “seeing behind the curtain” of American healthcare is that so many parts of the system are needlessly complicated, and most of those complications come from each player trying to get the most money out of a drug sale. The distributors, private insurance companies, pharmacy benefit managers—they all want a little piece of it for themselves. I got fed up with the whole thing, and wanted to use my writing and data analysis skills for something that’s useful to real people. I try to pair the hard facts with real human experiences, because those stories so often get lost along the way in our for-profit healthcare system.

We think you play a kind of “translator” role when presenting scientific data to the public. How would you define this role?

In the advertising world, we were called “creatives”, which I always thought was kind of funny. Because 90% of that job was about being factual and clear and following the rules your client gives you. But journalism lends itself to actual creativity: original concepts and new ways of looking at a problem, critical data analysis, writing and rewriting and rewriting again to create the best version of the story you’re trying to tell. In science and health journalism, that story often starts with jargon-filled research papers or trade publication press releases. It’s more than just finding the right synonym or defining a scientific term (which you actually don’t want to do too much, or you’ll put the reader to sleep), it’s about choosing the information that’s most important.

Authors hire translators to publish their books in other languages, but those translators do so much more than just replacing words with other words. You have to balance meaning, tone, and style, all while preserving the original intent of the writer.

II. Data, Health, and Narrative: Intersections in Journalism

We see you use tools like GitHub and Python and work in data-driven journalism. How do technical tools contribute to your storytelling?

I’m still pretty new to Python and coding languages, but so far I’ve really found these tools help me synthesize and make sense of information, which is always step one. Then I figure out how to present it in a really clear, compelling way to readers.

I recently worked on an investigation of lead in drinking water tap samples across New York City, and I created a website that lets the reader type in their address and see if their apartment has lead pipes or is served by a contaminated water tank. I could have directed them to a complicated map or listed out the locations of all the dirty water tanks in the city, but giving readers a simple interactive to play with is a better way to get people engaged with the story and see why it’s meaningful to them.

What strategies do you use to make complex topics like health and climate more accessible?

I think it’s a combination of things: pulling out the main takeaways that make it relatable and pertinent to the lay-reader, and driving home “the point”, whatever that may be. “Here’s what you need to know, here’s why it matters, and here’s what might happen next.” Writing simply is important for these kinds of stories.
There’s also something to be said for rhythm and pacing in a story, because you’ve got to think about the reader’s experience. When are they going to get bored? How can I cut out the fluff and keep the story moving? Those are all helpful strategies when writing about data and research. A really simple way of doing this is alternating short and long sentences. I think journalists can learn from writers like Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, or Cormac McCarthy, who clearly thought a lot about rhythm and cadence in their work. You might not be writing high literature, but you can still try to make the writing sing.

III. Alternative Narrative Forms and Future Vision

What is the role of alternative media in highlighting critical issues like public health, sustainability, and climate change?

I associate alternative media with original voices and people who refute cultural norms. Right now we’re seeing a lot of corporate influence in newsrooms, which has always been the case to some degree, but in this really polarized political and cultural climate I think more people are aware of it. Independent, alternative outlets can circumvent the status quo and bring attention to stories that big legacy newspapers with corporate interests might not want to.

In this context, how do you define “alternative media,” and where do you place your own work within this framework?

I’m not sure I place myself in the alternative media landscape, because I’m a fairly new journalist and am still learning the basics of the structural craft. I’m not sure I really fit anywhere at the moment.

I will say that, as a data fellow and reporting intern at the digital nonprofit newsroom The City, and it’s been really wonderful to see how a smaller newsroom functions. We get to pitch stories that need to be told, research and talk to people, run copy through our editors, and publish the pieces shortly thereafter. I think the small, scrappy, nonprofit outfit is an alternative to the larger, corporate newsrooms, and I think the reporting process at The City prioritizes the reporter and the people the reporter is writing about. The problem is we don’t have as many resources as, say, The New York Times, which I think is probably the case for a lot of alternative or nonprofit media. But having more money doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing better work. I could go deeper into the ways I’ve seen that reality bear out… but I’d rather not incriminate myself to future employers.

The takeaway? We need more funding for smaller, nonprofit newsrooms, because those are the places doing important work. Local news is so, so important. Maybe that’s an alternative-enough stance. We’ve seen so many local news outlets disappear after losing funding, and it’s really detrimental for the journalism industry and the people it serves.

Is there a publication you dream of working with in the future? For example, would you like to work at Scientific American?

I’d love to work at Scientific American! Their pieces got me hooked on science journalism, so that would definitely be a dream job. I also love the work that STAT and ProPublica do. I have to say, though, working full-time at The City would also be a dream job. I’m just an intern, but my editors are really wonderful, smart people doing really important work.

What are your thoughts on the importance of journalism that carries public responsibility today? In an era where data-driven content production is widespread, how do you think journalism’s role in serving the public good should be redefined?

Data can help cut through the noise. We’re swamped by media in all different forms these days, and it’s hard to know what to pay attention to. Data tells a real story–it’s not just the experience of one person or group, but about what’s been happening to many people over time.

Of course, you need the human element in there, but that’s just data too, if you think about it. News is data. That TikTok video about the new Korean skin serum is data. The trick is making sense of it, and that’s a journalist’s job. We’ve got to make sense of it, question our own sense-making, and when it’s ready, share it with readers who get to make sense of it too.

Open Knowledge and Digital Witnessing: A Conversation with Molly Stark Dean on Journalism, Representation, and Media Futures

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1. Entering Journalism and Professional Experience

How did you first get involved in journalism?

My high school in Vermont was a student news bureau.

Was there a pivotal moment that inspired you to pursue this path?

I used to watch the local news with my dad every evening.

Having worked at outlets such as Fox News, CBS News, Reuters, and CoinDesk, how have these different experiences shaped your perspective on journalistic practices?

These different experiences showed me how universal newsrooms can be: same shit; sifferent newsroom.

2. Digital Media and Storytelling

In your view, how have digital platforms transformed the way we tell stories in journalism?

Every new method of storytelling gets journalism closer to telling the truth: from oral communication to TV news and digital platforms.

What do you think is the most critical element for a story to be impactful in a digital environment?

Know who you are speaking to and decide the audience you wish to engage.

3. Education and the New Generation of Journalists

You teach a course titled “Journalism and the Machine” at The New School. What core issues or themes do you focus on in that course?

I focus on technology and its influence on the journalism industry.

What skills or competencies do you find most important to instill in emerging journalists today?

Storytelling: it’s more important than learning any emerging journalism technology.

4. Women Journalists and Representation

Could you share more about your work with the Women Do News project?

I promote digital gender equality by writing Wikipedia articles for women journalists.

How would you describe the key challenges women journalists face in terms of visibility in digital spaces?

Digital gender inequality stems from a systematic devaluing of women in all industries.

5. Wikimedia Activism

What kind of content do you produce through your collaboration with Wikimedia NYC, and what kind of impact do you aim to achieve?

My journalism career helped me identify key news influencers to speak on panels at Wikimedia events.

How does open access to knowledge intersect with journalism today?

Journalism is the underlying source code of the open knowledge movement. One is not possible without the other. 


6. Ethics and Editorial Principles


Have you encountered ethical dilemmas while working in different newsrooms? If so, how did you approach them?

Yes, I don’t approve of any work done without a livable wage and healthcare; it is a herculean task to find such work in newsrooms.

How do you prioritize ethical principles when developing content strategies?

A content strategy is most effective when it is developed with clear ethical principles outlined beforehand.


7. Future of Journalism

What are your thoughts on the growing impact of AI and algorithms in journalism?

Journalism pivoted to other tech hype in the past: AI is just the current tech obsession.

How do you envision journalism evolving in the next decade?

Human storytelling is the future.

The Problem of Reality in Digital Mass Communication: An Interview with Melissa Zimdars on Fake News, Trust, and Education

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Merrimack College Professor of Media and Communication | Melissa Zimdars

Media and Reality: Critique of a New Era A Pr Carnet World Interview Series

1. Academic Background and Motivation

What initially motivated you to work in the field of media literacy and combating misinformation?

My primary field is Media Studies, and in the fall of 2016 I taught an Introduction to Media course that included working on media literacy. I created an in-class assignment to help students evaluate and identify different kinds of online media sources, from fake news and clickbait to satire and political reporting.

I posted that assignment online asking my peers for feedback and it went viral! However, when some news organizations picked up the story, my in-class assignment turned into a “fake news list”! I realized that if such a silly thing could be reported on so wrongly by reputable organizations, it’s going to be an uphill battle for them—for everyone, really—to responsibly engage with media.

Your project “List of Fake News Sites” gained significant public attention. Could you share the motivation behind it and the academic/social impacts it had afterward?

After my work went viral I tried really hard to make it a stand-alone resource or a more public-facing document to help people. I better defined terms, expanded the list of sources, and added tips for evaluating sources. A number of libraries added it to their collections as a resource. Eventually the document expanded to over a thousand different sources with the help of some awesome librarians, and it became a dataset for researchers to use when examining fake news and mis/disinformation sources and networks. Now, that dataset has been folded into other, larger datasets that are more consistently updated to help people analyze these kinds of sources.

Personally, I’ve turned more toward understanding how people engage with mis/disinformation, how it travels from fringe to mainstream social media platforms, how hands-off rules and regulations by both platforms and governments enable its spread, and how reputable news organizations sometimes play a role in amplifying and laundering it for wider audiences.

2. Fake News, Disinformation, and Digital Media

After the 2016 US presidential elections, the term “fake news” became widely discussed. Do you think this term still holds meaning today, or has it become diluted?

I never found ‘fake news’ to be particularly helpful. In Media Studies, we previously used the term to talk about satire and other comedic forms of news. But around 2016 it became a kind of catchall for problematic content rather than a specific kind of quickly produced false content that mimicked the style of news. Now, non-satirical ‘fake news’ is typically considered a kind of mis/disinformation alongside things like political propaganda, pink slime websites (political sites that look like local news sources), and other types of sources that primarily produce content to persuade rather than to inform.

How does the decline in trust toward traditional media and the rise of social media as a primary news source affect efforts to combat disinformation?

Declining trust (in media, in government institutions, in health and science information and systems, and so much more) is a huge problem, especially among people who identify with the political right.

Whether people trust a source of information is deeply connected to their own political beliefs, and rightwing media figures and organizations within the United States have spent decades undermining and vilifying legacy media institutions while simultaneously building up their own incredibly robust and lucrative rightwing media system. Their system is incredibly insular, repeating the same talking points over and over, regardless of their accuracy, across articles, podcasts, websites, and social media accounts or platforms, creating what is called a propaganda feedback loop. If anyone in that system pushes back and challenges a talking point, they are then also deemed to be untrustworthy and risk losing their credibility with rightwing audiences.

So, basically, we have a situation in the United States where there are two media worlds. One of those worlds connects to legacy media organizations and the other serves the political right and is deeply connected to the Trump administration. Engaging in one means distrusting the other, so trying to reach people who engage the latter with accurate information is unlikely to work because they are very unlikely to trust it.

3. Media Literacy and the Future of Education

In your view, how can media literacy education be made more accessible not just for students, but for the general public as well? Are there any initiatives you find particularly effective?

We definitely need to incorporate media literacy much earlier in our educational systems, but outside of accessible public resources and library events, I’m honestly not sure. I’ve actually become pretty cynical in this area. Media literacy is necessary but it’s not a solution. We really need an overhaul of our media and social media systems: more public service journalism, less profit-motivated and rage-enhancing social media platforms, regulations and policies surrounding AI and the slop it churns out, structural changes to our political institutions and systems, actual political consequences for public figures who repeatedly lie, and so much more. We need to fix fundamental aspects of our media environments before we can fully depend on people to successfully navigate them.

What role should academics, journalists, and content creators play in fostering media criticism? How important are interdisciplinary collaborations in advancing critical media literacy?

Academics and educators obviously play a critical role in helping students develop critical thinking skills and media literacy. Journalists and content creators can and should do more in helping remove the barriers that people face when they have to practice or use those skills when navigating media environments. That means creating news or content with integrity and responsibly and quickly correcting mistakes. But journalists and creators can only do so much as individuals working within and via broken systems. It’s ultimately the organizations and platforms that need to do a lot of the fundamental work.

For example, it would be helpful if news organizations did away with mis/disinformation-spreading sponsored content that litter their own websites in the form of “chumboxes.” 

4. Gender and Digital Representations

From the perspective of feminist media studies, what are your observations on the representation of women on digital platforms? How do these representations intersect with the production of misinformation?

We’ve seen a huge amount of political propaganda in the U.S., including mis/disinformation, that is deeply sexist, racist, and xenophobic. For example, anti-abortion mis/disinformation frequently underpins anti-abortion policies across many states. Anti-abortion policies also connect to growing resentment that many young men feel over the gains that women have made in education and in the workforce, and that resentment is manifesting in social media content and propaganda arguing that a woman’s  “true” role is to be in the home raising children. Political influencers and propagandists convince young men that the past was better for them, legitimizing their grievances, blaming the gains of women for whatever they feel like they do not have, and inspiring their support of regressive policies that try to exert more control over women’s lives. And the propagandists spewing this nonsense, who are usually but not exclusively men, somehow receive fawning profiles rather than criticism in outlets like The New York Times and applause rather than condemnation for the highest figures in the United States government.

5. Future Outlook

What are your predictions for the next five years regarding media consumption, content production, and access to information? How should we prepare for these changes?

I think things are going to get much worse over the next five years. Public media in the U.S. is being further stripped of funding alongside research into mis/disinformation, legacy media organizations are laundering extremist political information and governmental actions to the general public, social media platforms and search engines are integrating “AI” into everything at a breakneck speed despite its propensity to hallucinate and churn out slop. Thus, our already “enshittified” media environments are on track to become even moreso. There isn’t much any of us can do as individuals since we do not own the means of media production and distribution, but we can be more mindful of how we use social media, particularly in terms of what we might post or reshare and how much time we spend endlessly scrolling. We can and should directly support news organizations that are doing good work, that are holding people in positions of power accountable. Ultimately, we can and should continue to work toward making our media environments better while teaching people how to best navigate them despite the road before us being long and likely quite bumpy.

Interview with Helen Benedict on “Women, Refugees and Quiet Witnesses of War”                                           

Gökhan Çolak Leave a comment

The Good Deed and the Power of Fiction

The Good Deed is based on your experiences visiting refugee camps in Greece. How did you balance factual accuracy with fictional storytelling in this novel?

I believe that if one is going to write fiction set in real places and encompassing real events, one should be accurate about those. So although the people in my novel, The Good Deed, are all invented, I like to say they all could exist. Likewise, even as the events that happen to those people are also invented, they, too, could happen to anyone in their circumstances. Thus I used my research in the camps, my talks with real people, and my fact gathering to make the story as plausible and authentic as possible.

What motivated you to transition from nonfiction accounts in Map of Hope and Sorrow to a fictional narrative in The Good Deed?

There are always barriers with real people. One has to worry about putting them in danger, re-traumatizing them, invading their privacy, for a start. But those dangers don’t exist with fictional characters. Thus I feel that I can get deeper into people’s hearts with fiction. I can go deep inside what it feels like to be forced away from your home, what it feels like to live as a stranger in a land that’s hostile to you, what it’s like from moment to moment to live in a refugee camp, and the ways that one can find comfort and sustenance and friendship and love. I wanted to write about the way human beings survive, the hardship, which I find very moving.

    And I wanted to do it from the inside, which is the landscape of fiction.

    How did your collaboration with Eyad Awwadawnan influence the development of characters and events in The Good Deed?

    Eyad taught me so much about life in Syria, life as an Arab, life as a Muslim, life in a refugee camp. He and I combed over every word of my novel together, so he could make sure I made no cultural or other mistakes. He helped steer me away from extremes and stereotypes and he helped me understand my characters from the inside out. And he helped me work within the Arabic language.

    Refugees, War, and Gendered Violence

    Your work often highlights the unique challenges faced by women refugees. What systemic changes do you believe are necessary to address these issues effectively?

    The biggest change to help women is to end mysogyny! Meanwhile, we should all be raising our sons to understand that women are their equals in every way, and not sexual objects there for men’s pleasure or vessels for motherhood alone. We should also be enshrining this fact in the law, ensuring that women have the same rights and opportunites as men have. In refugee camps, single women and survivors of any kind of abuse ought to be given safe and secure housing, medical and psychological care, and a supportive community. Unfortunately, this is not happening. I address more specific systemic changes in the last chapter of my book, Map of Hope and Sorrow.

    In your research, what common misconceptions have you encountered about refugees, and how do your writings aim to challenge them?

    The world is very busy demonizing refugees these days. Authoritarian, populist and nativist leaders such as Donald Trump in the United States, Viktor Orbán in Hungary and many more like to find scapegoats on which to direct the ire of the populus and distract them from the real threats of climate change, economic injustice and erosion of human rights. This is the oldest playbook in history. Today, people are told that refugees are all lazy opportunists who have come to live off the fat of the land, or are all terrorists, or are religious extemists out to change change our cultures and lifestyles. Or that they are all criminals, murderers and rapists. None of these accusations have any a basis in fact. Research has long shown that immigrants commit fewer crimes than natives and are not interested in changing anybody’s way of life. They simply want to survive and build a decent future for their children. All my books about refugees, fiction and nonfiction, are aimed at counterracting these negative streotypes by reminding readers that refugees are no different from them, and that any of us, with enough bad luck, could be a refugee.

    How do you approach the sensitive task of portraying trauma and resilience in your characters without perpetuating stereotypes or causing further harm?

    By being specific and accurate. By never eroticising or glamorizing violence or war. By being honest about how destructive violence is, and yet realistic about how people survive. I try very hard never to write the kinds of lies we see everywhere: that war is glamorous, that soldiers are noble, that victims can always rise up and win.

    Military Culture and Sexual Violence

    Your book The Lonely Soldier brought attention to sexual assault in the military. What progress have you observed since its publication, and what challenges remain?

    For a time there was some progress, in that at least the subject of sexual assault was no longer hidden in the military. But now, with Trump in office in the US and his henchman, Pete Hegseth in charge of the military, the department designed to push back against sexual violence has been dismantled, the honoring and recognition of women has been banned, and a culture of white, Christian, macho mysogyny has been glorified. This is a disaster for anyone in the military who has been harassed, bullied or sexually assaulted, and for any woman hoping to be treated with respect.

    How did your investigative work on military sexual assault influence your subsequent novels, such as Sand Queen and Wolf Season?

    I could never have written either of those novels without the inside knowledge I gained from my three years of interviewing women in the military, and all I read and heard about that very insular and secretive culture. Because of that research, I had the confidence to portray war trauma, sexual assault, sexism within the military, and how all that affects people when they come home from war.

    What ethical considerations guide you when writing about real individuals’ experiences with trauma and violence?

    I start by making sure I understand the risks they face. Are they living without legal protection? Are they under threat? Are they still too shaken to speak about certain topics? And how I can protect them on these fronts? It is very important to treat any source who has been traumatized as a partner, not someone to get something out of, so you can discuss how best to protect them together. It’s important to be respectful and sensitive, and not to force anyone to tell you anything they don’t want to. I like to give my sources control over what to say about themselves, and to make sure we understand each other’s goals in doing these interviews in the first place. Why do they want to tell me their stories? And why do I want to tell them myself? Find shared goals so you can work together toward the same end.

    Writing Across Genres and Teaching

    How do you decide whether a story should be told through fiction or nonfiction? What factors influence this choice?

    I don’t decide – it doesn’t work that way. What inspires me to write nonfiction is when I see an injustice that isn’t understood or known enough about, and so feel I need to let the public know. What inspires fiction can be a visual image, a sentence, the sketch of story I heard somewhere once. Novels grow out of characters, nonfiction out of facts.

    As a professor at Columbia University, how do you incorporate your fieldwork and research into your teaching methodology?

    I bring all I learn out in the world into my teaching. I teach courses on social justice journalism, so all my work on the miltary, war, refugees has been useful. It helps me advise students on ethical interviewing, on research, and on style.

    What advice would you offer to aspiring journalists and writers who wish to cover topics related to war, refugees, and social justice?

    Do your homework. Read as much as you can about your chosen subject. Don’t go in with a fixed idea you want to prove, go in looking for answers and stories you might not even expect. Prepare to have your eyes opened, your mind changed. Make sure you know why you are pursuing this subject and why your subjects want to talk to you. Treat people with respect. Never make a promise you can’t keep. Never break a promise you have made. Above all, be honest.