The 2022 Christiane Amanpour Lecture features Jane Ferguson, multiple award-winning international correspondent for PBS NewsHour and contributor to the New Yorker on humanity in war reporting: bringing authentic, individual experiences of war into conflict journalism.
War is experienced primarily by civilians. And those experiences are vast in their variety and context. Capturing the essence of what people go through, how they manage, and how war is woven into the fabric of their personal and familial stories is essential to helping audiences and readers truly understand what is going on around the world and the real impact of foreign policy decisions. In this lecture, we will explore the various techniques and approaches to bringing nuanced humanity to storytelling in conflicts, from the use of compelling characters to unparalleled access, writing and on-camera styles of reporting.
Thursday, October 20, 7:00pm
Throughout 2021, Ferguson reported extensively from Afghanistan, spending time with government troops, local militia, and the Taliban as the group marched on Kabul. On August 15th, Ferguson and her cameraman boarded the last commercial flight permitted to fly to Kabul and witnessed the Taliban enter the city hours later. Her and her team were the only US journalists present throughout the deadly, American-led evacuation efforts at Kabul airport over the next ten days, documenting the biggest airlift of people since the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and one of the biggest crises in recent US foreign policy. She has since returned to Afghanistan to cover the humanitarian crisis and the Taliban’s subjugation of women and girls.
In March and April of this year, she reported from on the ground in Ukraine as Putin’s invasion of the country intensified.
Ferguson’s reporting from Afghanistan was awarded the Overseas Press Club of America Peter Jennings Award.
Ferguson continues to report for PBS, and is a contributor to The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly. She lives in New York and is currently writing her memoir.
Photo: John Nowak, © 2018 Cable News Networks, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company. Used with permission.
The Christiane Amanpour Lecture is endowed by and named for the 1983 URI alumna and 1995 honorary degree recipient. She is chief international anchor for CNN and host of its award-winning, flagship global affairs program Amanpour, as well as Amanpour & Co. which airs on PBS in the United States. Launched in 2008, the speaker series brings well-respected journalists to campus each year.