A Nonpartisan State of the World Report Featuring Award-Winning Journalist Terry McCarthy

     I was very engaged by Dr. McCarthy's talk about journalism and partisanship in the media. From the start, he described nonpartisan journalism as simply "covering both sides of the story," something that gets forgotten in our age of partisan media and news sources. 

He told a fascinating anecdote of how his involvement in journalism sparked. He revealed that documenting the Israel-Palestine conflict sparked his interest. The greater takeaway is that wars and conflicts are tragedies that are difficult to understand if viewed from only one lens. Often, media heavily shows one perspective of a conflict, which inflicts internal bias on people. Dr. McCarthy shared about his interview with the Israeli Prime Minister, where he learned about the ultimatum to choose to take care of his sick wife or his nation. He shares a humanized account of his experience with the Palestinian leader, Arafat, and how they played chess to ease his mind of the political tension. With that, he reflects on the most powerful tool in journalism, human connection.  

I was inspired by McCarthy's story and the value of communicating with people involved in a conflict to share a common bond of humanity. During the QandA, he provided advice for impressionable young journalists in the audience. While you can turn on the news and hear about world conflicts, through journalism, there is a human connection that drives you to take action. Therefore, we have to follow all perspectives to a story in order to understand it in its depth. We need to understand the motivators and the actors of the conflict, to understand why leaders do what they do, and what the effect of that is on people. With that note, here is a quote that really stuck with me throughout the event; McCarthy says, 

"The most important aspect of journalism is to listen to people and empathize with your interviewee, as that is the most effective way to elicit genuine authenticity from their stories."

As Dr. McCarthy spoke about his responsibilities as an unbiased journalist, my biggest takeaway was to diversify the news that I digest; not only by finding new sources from unique perspectives but by actively trying to understand others. This allowed me to think about my own biases when digesting news and overall understanding world conflicts. If you would like to hear more from him or if this is your first time hearing about him, I suggest watching his engaging TED Talk on the Cost of War. Thank you Mr. McCarthy for this engaging event!