Nicholas D. Kristof
Nicholas D. Kristof
Nicholas Donabet Kristofis an American journalist, author, op-ed columnist, and a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. He has written an op-ed column for The New York Times since November 2001, and The Washington Post says that he "rewrote opinion journalism" with his emphasis on human rights abuses and social injustices, such as human trafficking and the Darfur conflict. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has described Kristof as an "honorary African" for shining a spotlight on neglected conflicts...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth27 April 1959
CountryUnited States of America
There are other issues I have felt more emotionally connected to, like China, where I lived and worked for some time. I was living there when Tiananmen Square erupted
The equivalent of five jumbo jets' worth of women die in labor each day, but the issue is almost never covered.
One thing the humanitarian world doesn't do well is marketing. As a journalist, I get pitched every day by companies that have new products. Meanwhile, you have issues like clean water, literacy for girls, female empowerment. People flinch at the idea of marketing these because marketing sounds like something only companies do.
The way you get leaders to care about issues of conscience is to apply political pressure. It's less a question of persuading leaders directly and more trying to build a social movement that holds their feet to the fire.
If only women are talking about women's rights, then the issue has failed from the start. If you think about the Holocaust, that wasn't just a Jewish issue. Civil rights weren't just a black issue.
You could perhaps better tell the story of a place by writing of a tiny village as a sort of prism into the bigger issues the culture was facing.
The world spends $40 billion a year on pet food.
As soon as I was old enough to drive, I got a job at a local newspaper. There was someone who influenced me. He wrote a column for The Guardian from this tiny village in India.
If Africa could establish a clothing export industry, that would fight poverty far more effectively than any foreign aid program.
Neither Western donor countries like the U.S. nor poor recipients like Cameroon care much about Africans who are poor, rural and female.
Every year 3.1 million Indian children die before the age of 5, mostly from diseases of poverty like diarrhea.
I've gotten dangerously close to the line by talking policy with politicians, by making direct appeals to readers to act. But lives are on the line.
The degree to which these people were willing to share the little they had, did make me feel rather guilty about not doing more for them.
The bulk of the emails tend to come after a column. I can get about 2,000 after a column.