Dionne Searcey: New York Times Reporter, Author, and Pulitzer Prize Winner

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I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. This episode's guest is a remarkable reporter named Dion Searcy. From 2014 to 2015, Dion covered the US economy for the New York Times. She was living in Brooklyn with her husband and three kids at the time. Prior to this position, she was an investigative reporter and national legal correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. In the fall of 2015, she traded her life in New York for a position in Dakar, Senegal, as the west and Central Africa Bureau Chief of the New York Times. This beat included approximately 25 countries from the Sahara to the Congo River. In 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 250 girls in Nigeria. This event inspired the Bring Back Our Girls international campaign. Dion went to northeastern Nigeria and Cameroon to investigate the conversion of girls to suicide bombers, battles between the Nigerian army and Shiites, and Boko Haram raids on villages. One of her stories was titled they Ordered her to be a Suicide Bomber. She had another idea. Mousie Sigun, executive director of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, said Dion's reporting on Nigeria's Boko Haram conflict has been nothing short of phenomenal. Dion won the Michael Kelly Award in 2018 for her reporting on Boko Haram. This award celebrates the fearless pursuit and expression of truth. She was also part of the New York Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2020 for her coverage of Russian interests and involvement in the Central African Republic. She recently published a book called In Pursuit of Disobedient Women. She currently covers politics for the New York Times. I have some exciting news. Remarkable People is now brought to you by Remarkable the Paper Tablet Company. Yes, you've got that right. The Remarkable People podcast is sponsored by the Remarkable Paper Tablet Company. Here are seven reasons why I like my remarkable paper tablet. First, the feeling and sound of writing are close to pencil on paper. Second, it lasts two weeks on a battery charge. Third, you don't have to charge the pencil. Fourth, the pencil has an eraser, just like in real life. Fifth, typing on a keyboard is usually interpreted as multitasking and rude, but writing notes means you're paying rapt attention. 6. All my notes are immediately backed up and accessible from other devices. 7. I can drag PDFs to the remarkable Mac Applied and they will appear on the tablet. This is a remarkably well thought out product. It doesn't try to be all things to all people, but it takes notes better than anything I've used. Check out the recent reviews of the latest version. I'm Gak Kawasaki, and this is remarkable people. And now here's the remarkable Dion Searcy.

How did you get from the cornfields of Nebraska to Dakar and West Africa? Like, how did that happen?

It was a pretty long, slow climb, I guess, journalism wise. I came up through the ranks in. In a way that I think a lot of Gen X journalism people kind of do. I worked at a series of local newspapers. I studied journalism in college. I didn't get master's degree, but just. Just very slowly climb my way up from small newspaper to bigger, bigger, bigger kind of newspaper. I think it's a really good way to spend a journalism career because by that point in time, you have a range of experience. You cover city council meetings, you cover police activity, crime and shootings and gang stuff. You cover, I don't know, education and politics and whatever. And I feel like it's a channel that is kind of closed off to journalism. You know, kids these days, because local news is in such a slump and they're just. Papers are shutting down and it's, it's a pathway that I think is a little trickier to do right now.

So now you're, you're covering economics for the Wall Street Journal, and from that you go to West Africa. Like, how does that happen?

I was at the Wall Street Journal. I was doing investigative work there, and then I got a job at the New York Times where I think everybody, I mean, not everybody, but a lot of reporters want to work there at the Times. And so I took a job at covering the economy with the understanding that I didn't always want to cover the economy there. And I think that's the beauty of American journalism and of these big newspapers, is you're a generalist, so you can cover everything. I think European newspapers often operate a little differently, where people are specialists in different things for their entire lives. But we are generalists. I would, I would love to write about food for the New York Times or opera for the New York Times. In a way that I wouldn't really want to write about that for the Wall Street Journal because their emphasis is on business news and it's a different thing. And that was really fun. And I'm so happy that I had that experience of learning how corporations work and stocks fluctuate and that kind of thing. I think all of it was really good training for these giant, massive international beats. So I covered 25 countries in West Africa and you cover everything that happens.

And what was the thinking? Okay, so you have three kids, you're living in New York, and you say, and your husband is working for the zoo and you say, let's go be the bureau chief for the Times in West Africa.

A lot of dual parent couples, one person has a lot of flexibility in their job. And that really wasn't the case for us. We were just both going full steam and I think we were really tired of it. So it gets really exhausting and it prompts a lot of like, stupid fights. And it's really hard. And I think it's hard as a woman when society's expectations are for you to take care of kids and to take a secondary role. And so we wanted to shake things up. And where you get in New York City and you're caught in a rut of like childcare drama and who can work from home or who gets to work, that was one big thing. Like I get to go to the office or I get to work on a Saturday or even I get to exercise today, because you're stuck with the kids. And so a friend, a friend had compared it to, you're both out in the ocean and the only way for you to survive is to push the other one down underwater. So the only way for you to get a breath. And that's really what it felt like. So we were pretty eager to shake things up. We'd always talked about moving abroad. I pitched my husband on it a thousand times before. And so finally he said yes.

I think that I probably have as ignorant of you, of Africa as your typical American. And you address this in your book.

It's.

It's hot, dirty, full of crime, Everybody's a terrorist, etc.

Etc.

So pretending you're writing the Africa for Dummies book.

Well, that's kind of what I thought my book maybe was about. You know, can you give us the.

Gist of Africa for people who are ignorant of what it's really for a.

Lot of Americans, we have so many stereotypes, if we even think about it at all. I mean, we often don't even consider the place as a place, as the old saying that Africa is a country, that people think of Africa as just one spot when there are 50 some nations and all kinds of nationalities and languages and cultures and whatever. And so I think Americans have the stereotype of Africa perpetuated by Hollywood as a place of wars and savagery and famine and disease and maybe a few wild animals. So it's not like that, right? I mean, there are bad things that happen in African countries just like there are bad things that happen in America. And there are very universal sets of problems. I mean, I had this massive, massive beat and I tried to break it down into. By covering 25 countries, I tried to, to break it down into different themes that I saw that were going on there that have very real parallels to America. Climate change is a huge issue there. As the Sahara like spreads, the winds carry the sand farther down and the rains are fewer and farther between, there are great demographic shifts that are happening there. A growing population, a big population of young people. And that's true in America too. We have huge demographic shifts here, with places becoming less white. There's urban urbanization. People are emptying out of the countryside, moving into cities. That's happening in America to crazy extremes. And a lot of times these things all cycle together. Like people are leaving their farms because of climate change and because there's so many young people who don't have jobs and they're moving to the city. So everything's kind of intertwined. And another thing happening there is extremism. You're seeing a rise in, in conservative Islam. And here we have extremism too. So I really was, was eager to draw some parallels to America to make, make these unfamiliar themes sound familiar.

How did the Times prep you to move over there?

The Times is a big corporation and there's a lot of COVID your butt liability stuff that goes into it. But they also, you know, want to prepare you for the absolute worst. Because sometimes covering a war or going into dangerous spots. So they fitted me for a bulletproof vest and a helmet and put me through hazardous environments training, where former British commandos teach you how to avoid landmines or watch out for snipers and that kind of thing, they, and they pretend to kidnap you and show you what that might be like and tell you what to do in those circumstances. And I guess the biggest tip I got was your, your best chances of survival in a kidnapping are in the first few minutes, because kidnapping is babysitting. Like nobody wants to babysit somebody for a long time. So eventually they just get tired of you and kill you if it drags on. So I thought that was a pretty interesting insight. And wait, wait.

So does that mean the optimal strategy is resist as much as you can?

Yeah, I think so. Like, try to get out if there's a way to. If there's a way to flee, run if there are any opportunities, as opposed.

To be cooperative and reason with them, et cetera, et cetera.

So, like, the normal street crime, like, the advice that you get, turn over your wallet if you get stuck up or something, that's. That's a little bit of a different kind of strategy. It was really strange. But then they also teach you how to. It's like a first aid course, but like, really, really hardcore first aid. Like how to. If you have a bullet wound to the chest, you know what to. How to basically stabilize you or your photographer along with you or something like that so that you can stabilize someone until help arrives. But the Times also, they would. They gave me a list of questions that ult I knew the answer to, like, what was your grandmother's favorite meal to make? Or something like that, so that they could determine if a kidnapper had me, that they weren't being fooled. If the kidnapper called my editor and said, I have Dion and wherever, then that would assure them that they really had me because they were answers to questions that only I would know.

So, and you're. You're prepping this and doing this training, and you don't think maybe I shouldn't do this with three kids?

I mean, that's an interesting question, because would you ask a man that question? Right? Like, do. Do men get.

Actually, I would.

Okay, true. But. But I feel like sometimes it's expected for a guy, it's okay for a man, a father, to do these kinds of jobs without a lot of real questioning. And. And I will say that the Times at the time and still had a lot of moms who were in Dange. Ann Barnard was in Beirut and covering Syria for many years. Rukmini Kalamaki was covering ISIS from New York, but flying into very dangerous places. And there were a lot of women on the staff. And I was really proud to work for an organization that if somebody wanted to do it and could work it out with their family and their partner and have kids and, like, I think the kids would definitely get concerned at sometimes, but we have all this training and all this background, and I'm not 20 years old running in, you know, like some goofy cowboy or something into dangerous situations. And what I really found that some of the best stories are told on the sidelines of conflict, not in the middle of conflict, like finding victims and just hearing them out and hearing what they have to say. I really think that that is some of the best reporting than being in the middle and in the thick of things when it's really dangerous.

Okay, so let's pursue that path a little more. How do you write a story about something like a group such as the Boko Haram? First of all, am I pronouncing it right? Because. Boko Haram.

Boko Haram, yes.

Let's say you decide what you did to write a story about Boko Haram. How do you proceed to do something like that? I mean, this is different than calling up Apple PR and requesting a meeting with Tim Cook.

Yeah, definitely. Boko Haram is a terrorist organization that operates in northeastern Nigeria and some of the surrounding countries. They're one of the most secretive organizations in the world. They don't, you know, tweet at reporters or, you know, even ISIS has, like, some. Some channels of communication. Boko Haram, they're out in the boonies, and they do their own thing. And for me, I studied up. I read books, I read articles. And then I wanted to interview a fighter. I thought it would be amazing to talk to. To find some. Some fighters somehow, but it seemed really impossible. So I. I went to, you know, the place where Boko Haram began. And this movement began, like many terrorist movements, because of government corruption and government neglect in a city where there's no. There are no pa. No electricity in many places, yet government officials were living it up with fancy cars and, you know, nice houses. And so that's how it began. And so I wanted to go to the center of the action and see what I could find.

And what did you find?

Well, I couldn't do anything alone because I'm nobody, from nowhere. And so I hired a local journalist to help me out. And in this case, it was Shehu Abubakar. He was the fisheries and agriculture reporter for a newspaper called the Daily Trust there. And I hired him, and we went around, and he kind of explained the situation to me. I mean, it's a pretty common thing for international reporters to rely on local folks to help guide you. I mean, every reporter I used to work with at the Wall Street Journal like to say, every story needs a shepherd. And you really, you know, regardless of where you are, if you're in Podunk, Nebraska, like where I'm from, you know, you. You still need somebody to guide you through when you're either to navigate the bureaucracy or to kind of tell you points of view. And so I listened to him, and I became really intrigued by this notion of things that were happening, which were suicide bombings in these cities, and many of them carried out by women. And that really set me on a path of trying to figure out what in the world was behind all that.

And what causes a woman to become. Well, anybody really. What causes a woman to become a suicide bomber?

Well, that's what I wanted to figure out. And as is the case with many things, I very slowly learned over time that these women were not becoming suicide bombers. They were being forced to carry suicide bombs. They were being explosives tied to their waist, marched at gunpoint after seeing their families slaughtered in front of them. And very naive, in some cases, girls and girls. Girls, not women. Girls who were 14 years old, 12 years old, 8 years old in some cases. And really, I really tried to focus on their bravery and change the narrative because the government was painting them as villains, you know, as evil, suicide bombing, terrible people. And that just wasn't going on. And so once I started talking to them and hearing about ones who had turned in their bomb, who had surrendered to authorities or found other ways, like very, very clever ways to get out of it, I really was on a mission to portray them as heroes, really, or just as something that the government was not portraying them, I guess, as. Because they were really trying to paint them as bad people. And that just wasn't the case.

I have to say, I was just.

Riveted with your description of how you did this. I come from the tech world, and there's nothing even close to. I mean, nothing. And if you. On a scale of 1 to 100, you're like 150. Tech is about 5. So, yeah, it was, I think, like 1.

For me, like, one of the most fun and exciting and interesting things about reporting is when your assumptions are turned on their heads. And it might be similar, you know, in the tech world. I don't know if you go into something thinking that, okay, this is one way, and I'm gonna, you know, just find out all about it and whatever, and then you find out a piece of information that just completely flips the script and turns your head just completely backwards as you try to figure it out and piece it together. And that, to me, is the most fun, exciting part about journalism, is when you're just 100% wrong and then figuring out why you're wrong and what is really happening. And I Feel like that. That's your curiosity. That's the importance of curiosity, I guess.

Did you ever gain insights into the mindset of a Boko Haram member?

Like, why do they join?

Yeah, I mean, for sure. Just listening to girls who were forced. Who spent a lot of time with Boko Haram or were forced to be married to them or even who were maybe willing, I guess. Women's roles was often often relegated to doing laundry and cooking and clean in the Boko Haram camps. But even people who were there willingly were there because the situation with them was better than it was at home. So in some ways, that was the driving force. And I started out my journalism career at a place that no longer exists, called the City News Bureau of Chicago, where I covered a lot of gang warfare in Chicago. And I found a lot of parallels. I found myself thinking about these stories I would cover in the housing projects on the south side of Chicago about kids who just. Just had no jobs, no money, no family structure, the government, you know, city government didn't care about them. Society just had cast them aside and it made them, you know, gave them this sense of belonging. And you add to that just really, really, really awful unemployment levels in these places. And Boko Haram, when you joined Boko Haram, they gave you a motorbike like that would appeal to many teenage boys. So I think getting a gun and a motorbike and this camaraderie, I think was really, really appealing.

Well, this is going to sound like a ridiculous question, but what separates you and I from being a Boko Haram kind of organization member? Is it just by the grace of God or privilege?

I think sheer privilege. I think I just was constantly reminded of my privileged position when I was. Was covering West Africa. Like, I'm white. I'm a woman. I'm from America. I'm from one of the most prestigious news organizations in the world. I, you know, but. But like, look at unrest in America now. Boko Haram really got violent after their leader died in police custody. Think of that for a minute in the context of what's going on in America. He was. It was an extrajudicial killing. Like, he was shot in the head by police when they arrested him. That kind of thing triggers riots and violence. And in places where conditions are even more extreme, obviously, than in America, it spirals out of control. And you add to that a religious. I don't know if I want to say a cult, maybe like a cult like kind of experience or just real conservative, a belief that all government is bad. All. All Western education is bad. That's a big thing of Bogoran. Because they thought that Western education was poisoning the minds of these people, because they would see government officials send their kids off to boarding school in the UK Or America, and those kids would come back and also run for office and steal from the citizens just like their parents had done. And to an uneducated kid growing up without anything that looks like Western education is bad. I mean, you can. I'm dramatically oversimplifying, but, I mean, you can really see how these movements start. I felt like. And that you obviously not sympathize, but you can just understand how things happen.

In your book, you drew one of the more amazing parallels, which is Donald Trump and the president of Senegal.

So.

Are there parallels?

For sure? I think we're seeing that all the time. I was seeing parallels when I was. When I was in West Africa, but now even more so now that a lot of things that Trump are doing, talking about extending his mandate, his term. Right. Talking about blaming election rigging before an election to kind of achieve, hopefully achieve a result that you want. These are straight out of playbooks of dictators and corrupt regimes. I mean, I'm not calling Trump corrupt or a dictator or anything like that, but they are tactics that have been used by regimes that we would probably not consider as examples or role models for democracy, for a healthy democracy. So I think there, you know, more and more we're seeing those kinds of things, but there's corruption in every administration. And I think maybe we had a really great story about the end of American exceptionalism. And I'm really hopeful that these times that we're in right now make us stop and consider when we're like, oh, well, that election rigging happened in Africa. Oh, it would never happen here. Well, maybe bad things do happen here, could happen here, and maybe we're not so different from other places that are in crisis.

Two more questions about Africa. Okay, so one is, when you see some Hollywood star or starlet jump and become this activist, what's your reaction to that? Part of the problem, part of solution. Is it hypocrisy? Is it. Is it angelic, great philanthropy?

What is it?

That's a really interesting question. And I think a lot of the international NGOs and the UN organizations do have celebrity. There's a name they have for it. I can't remember. But they do have celebrities who go out to refugee camps to try to call attention to things and to get donations. And I think there's I don't know. I haven't studied it. I'm not an academic. But there's probably a place for certainly calling attention to things. But I just was typing up an interview I did with Kehinde Wiley, who is a black American with a Nigerian father, an African American mother who did the Obama portrait. Right. And he has opened a residency in Dakar for artists. And I think rather than like, being a celebrity going out and like, serving soup at a refugee camp, he is working on getting more attention for African photographers. And, you know, a Nigerian photographer had a residency at his place. Last time I talked to a Nigerian author, a novelist, you know, he is trying to showcase Africa's talents that way by giving these people time and space to work on their craft. And I think that is much more noble, you know, musicians who kind of break through to Western audiences and just. We're at the point, I feel like, with Africa, where even just. I mean, sometimes stereotypes are so bad that even just showing Africa as human beings or artists or painters or potters or something from. From these countries is. Is important to make people realize, oh, right, there are individuals there who aren't out on safari or something. Our stereotypes are so bad of the. Of the continent. It.

So what was the effect of your kids living in Africa on them?

Well, I think they know a lot about a place of the part of the world that a lot of people don't know about. I'm proud of that. I like that they went to an international school where there were kids from all over the world, but, you know, all of them were listening to Taylor Swift. So I don't know how much. How much difference. Difference there was there. But. But I do think we were touring public high schools last year, last fall. I got back a year ago right in time for New York City's insane public high school process, where you go around and tour schools and we're going through a hallway and on the hallway were posters of, like, a history class with posters of Peru and, I don't know, pottery or something. And, I don't know, all these different countries and like, highlighting things, a specialty from that country. And we got to one that was just Africa in a mud hut. And my son just cracked up laughing. He's like, are you kidding me? And I was really psyched that he understood and got that. So. And we talked about, you know, what he would put up there. And it was really cool that these kids know that there are complex countries and nations and peoples in other places.

I recall you said something like, you didn't take malaria shots, and you. You started letting them go out by themselves. And it's that I think most American parents would say, oh, my God, yeah, first of all, I would never go live in Africa, but if I did, I would live in this totally protected compound, and my kids would never leave, and we'd have all the shots, everything.

Yeah, a lot of Americans did that, to be honest. I mean, there were protective compounds even in even a car or. Everybody lives together. Everybody has a security guard. My office had a security guard, and I lived in the office. So. But. But I tried to take cues from what Senegalese parents were doing. And there were kids, like two kids to a bicycle out riding around. I mean, my kids aren't coordinated enough to do that. But. But my son, by the time we Left, he was 12 when we left. He was taking taxis by himself all over the city. And, you know, some of the taxi drivers didn't even speak French, which was the language he was learning at school. They spoke Wolof, but he realized, okay, well, I can communicate, I can point, and I can whatever. And I'm really proud that he had those skills. And my girls were going to the ocean, where there was a riptide, apparently, but they knew how to swim, and it just felt like it was overblown. And there were other kids in the ocean, Senegalese kids. So I really feel like a lot of, you know, living abroad and in different. Different cultures is just watching and learning, and they were part of that. And. And I hope that they have that bug to go out on their own. One of my girls wants to be in the Peace Corps. One of them wants to, like, study abroad. We'll see. But I hope they do it well.

They certainly have the right DNA, there's no question about that. Switching gears now more generally about journalism, so. So has journalism helped you do something? Has it helped you contribute?

Well, you know, I'm a huge believer in journalism, and, like, people believe in science or God or whatever. You know, I really, really believe that journalism has the power to write the first draft of history. You know, journalists obviously don't always get it right, and I do think that there is. Is a place for people of color and from different nations to write their own stories, to tell their own stories. And I hope that women that I wrote about in my book do tell their own stories at some point. But I felt like I wanted to be a conveyor and a translator to this world that most people don't think about. And if I can make people see West Africans in a new light in these countries. I met someone who traveled to Dakar because, because they had read my writing and they never would have traveled there before. I was really proud of that. I was, you know, really proud of the fact a Nigerian singer I wrote about, you know, got. Got to perform at south by Southwest because they had read my story, was psyched about that. I was in the, the Central African Republic one time, which is this really war torn country, you know, that has a lot of diamonds and it's. I interviewed a Catholic bishop there, one of the most powerful people in the country. And I always said to people I interviewed, is there anything you want me to tell the world? Because you have this platform in front of you right here. What would you like people to know? And he just said, we in the Central Africa Republic are humans. And that was his message because so many. He was like, I travel throughout Africa and people don't even know Central African Republic is a country in Africa. Other Africans don't know that. And so it's just like, it just tore me up inside that he wanted people to be reminded that there were human beings in that country. And anything I could do to contribute, you know, to the fact that people from West Africa were human beings with, you know, and these were nations with lack of, with economies, with the tech scene, like the tech scene in Nigeria is huge, right? Jack Dorsey went there, was planning on moving to Nigeria earlier, before COVID happened, Mark Zuckerberg traveled to Nigeria. I mean, there are, you know, there are tech startups and hubs and all that kind of stuff there. There is. I went to a poetry slam after going to KFC in Ghana one night. You know, I mean, there's just like, you know, it's really people having real lives that deserve as much attention as us.

Okay, if someone's listening to this podcast and says, I want to be like her, I want to be a journalist like her, how, what do they do? What kind of courses? What kind of experiences?

Right. Well, I think, you know, my path to journalism was this slow and steady climb up through a lot of local newspapers, and local newspapers are closing down at a local. Alarming rates in America right now. So it's tricky. But I think writing for any number of websites, contacting. I always like to talk to young journalists about their career paths and being in touch with as many people as possible is a good idea. A lot of people go to Columbia Journalism School. I did not have that privilege. I went to school at the University of Nebraska, you know, but it had A great campus newspaper. And it was me and my friends putting out a paper and making mistakes and having success. And that's really important. But I also think one other really, really critical thing to do is to read the newspaper and understand journalism and what it is and how it works and how a story is conveyed and, you know, have opinions about. Look at. Compare different newspapers to TV or whatever else. Because I think how things are covered is. And being critical of that is really important, too.

Okay, can you give us a crash course on how to conduct a great interview?

Well, I think you start by listening, you know, and not assuming things or being open to the fact that your assumptions may be challenged and are wrong. I think doing your homework on a person is really important. Reading all the stories that have been written about them, knowing something about their bio is important. But I like to do two things. I mean, I try to be empathetic to people even that maybe, like, personally, I think are. I don't agree with or something, but I'm not a robot like an editor. I used to have always said reporting is a series of human interactions. You're a person and I'm a person. If your kid is crying in the background, like, have a conversation about that kid, because then everybody's more comfortable. Or. I interviewed a group of Senegalese migrants one time, and they were really nervous. There were these young teenage boys, and they all had a scar on their forehead. Like, all of them had scars on their forehead. And it made me laugh because my son had just fallen down and got a scar in his forehead. And so I was telling them about that, and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah. I was about 10 when that happened to me too, you know, and just everybody's more comfortable, and we're all people. And I also think it's really important to ask people what do they want out of this interview? What is the message that they want conveyed, and what am I forgetting to ask them? I think those are all super critical things to make sure you bring up in the interview.

Okay. The flip side of this is, is how do you also maintain distance?

Or should you maintain distance?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a real question. Roiling journalism right now is activism versus straight up journalism. And, you know, journalists are not activists. We do maintain distance. And I think that that does not preclude you, however, from channeling your empathy to better understand a situation, channeling your rage, even. Even. You know, you see, when I was covering these victims of Boko Haram, like little girls who are sent out to do, you know, go on suicide missions and the government then calling them traitors or bad people. I think it's okay to channel that like, what, are you kidding me? Into a story that, like, okay, then here. Here it is. Here is what this girl went through, and you're telling me, you know, she's a criminal? And she watched her. Her mother get slaughtered in front of her. She was told she would be raped if she didn't, you know, walk down this pathway with a bomb strapped to her. She couldn't actually physically untie the bond because it was tied behind her back. She then surrendered to police, and you put her in jail for eight months. And channeling the rage that you have at that, I don't really feel like that shows bias, that shows. Shows empathy and informs your reporting, and I think that that's really important.

Small story, but did the woman get her bag of rice where you question whether that was ethical?

Yeah, I had a fixer who wanted to deliver a bag of rice to a woman we had just talked to who was completely destitute, and we're not supposed to pay people. And that would have been, you know, it wasn't just a bag of rice. It was like, you have to translate that into, like, American terms. It was like, you know, a new car or something for even more important than that, because she would. It would have sustained her. And you always are constantly making these. Seeing awful things and trying to understand, like, you know, I guess the point is I'm gonna write about it to make the situation better and make presidents see it. And, you know, you have this huge, huge audience as a New York Times reporter. But my fixer wanted to buy her a bag of rice, and I. I just was like, fine, buy her a bag of rice. You know, she has all these kids, and I ended up not writing about her. So there wasn't an ethical question. But, yeah, it's tricky, and it's really hard when you're. You know, you're supposed to be objective and you're supposed to do all this stuff. So I guess a lot of times, that's why it sucks when your story doesn't run on the front page, because you really want to get all the attention in the world, and then you'll write a story. You know, I was battling against. Against news about Trump at the beginning of the Trump administration, and there would be some story about somebody trying to curry favor by sleeping in a Trump hotel or whatever, and then my story about, I don't know, refugee or something would get shoved in the back of the paper and just. But that happens, you know, and it's. It's just part of the deal, and you just try harder and try again and try to figure out what works. And a lot of times, I benefit from being a distraction on the front page from what was going on in America.

You can find a story and use it to illustrate a larger point. But as we've seen lately, you could also. Not you. But a person could find a story where someone drank Clorox or someone took this other kind of medicine, or someone never wore a mask and went to a crowded bar and didn't get coronavirus. So how do you balance the power of storytelling versus sort of the scientific. Is this a representative sample? Is this statistically valid?

Well, I think there are definitely checks and balances at newspapers. You know, that's why we have editors to make sure you're not going off the rails and to reel you back in. But I think you also really have to constantly question yourself, like, is this representative? Use as much data as you can. We have really great reporters who work in data mining and that kind of thing, but also just talk to as many people as possible. Don't talk to officials and trust no one, or at least not really. But I think you really. We have to think always about what someone's motivation is for telling you something. You know, is it power? Is it money? Is it to make themselves look better? And everybody has a motivation for talking to a reporter. Everybody. Whether it's for good or not good. And I think that you just keep that in mind and try to present as many points of view as possible and call people who know. I mean, I work, you know, in a really big newsroom where there's always somebody who's faced this situation before me. We have an ethics. An ethics editor. We have other reporters who've covered things and come across things, and you just have to. Have to be careful. But it is a constant process because you have so much power in your hands as a reporter, especially for the New York Times with that platform, and especially when the president's attacking the paper, you don't want to portray something long and do something stupid. When you're in the spotlight constantly on. On the president's Twitter feed.

Getting a little tactical. What are your tools of the trade?

Yeah, I'm, like, so hardcore, old school. I have a pen and a notebook, and if I'm in an office, I use, you know, I take notes on my computer. I often record interviews on my iPhone. It's so Simple. I just always look at the photographers that I travel with and feel bad for them carrying all their equipment around, you know, or if I'm with out with a video person or something because they're having like all this juggling, all this stuff. But really it's. It's pretty simple. I think being a reporter and especially, I mean, iPhones are kind of revolutionary in that way because you don't have to juggle a recorder and. And that sort of thing. But it's pretty simple.

Okay, some advice about working with editors.

Ooh, working with editors. I really like my editors. I'm not one of those people who is angry and cantankerous about editing. I feel like I have had very few editors I. I didn't like or didn't learn something from. I mean, I just really love having a partner. And so I think the worst kind of editing you get is when your editor isn't into your story. But if you just get them on your side and get them into it, it's so fun. It's such a fun partnership. And it's also aggravating. I think every reporter wants to write really, really long. But learning to write short is a craft that's worth understanding and knowing. And I don't know, I just think, like, you should. Any writer that into a situation with an editor angry is just really off base. I think reporters can be great friends and partners in writing.

Well, what makes a great editor?

I think somebody who listens and really understands. I mean, I like editors with a sense of humor. That's my favorite thing that get when you're trying to be funny and don't want you to be straight up in your. In your stories, or get when you're trying to be a little bit quirky or weird or appreciate details, especially in reporting from West Africa or when you're out in the field somewhere or even, honestly, even in the middle of the country. Like, when I go back to Nebraska, where I'm from, to write, I want to write about what a place looks like, what are people wearing, what are, you know, because I feel like, especially in New York and LA and Silicon Valley, like, we all get in these little bubbles where we think everybody has a Patagonia vest on and everybody, or in New York, like, wears all black or whatever. And just to give a sense of, like, hi, these are different people in different places. And. And here's, you know, how life is here. I mean, I had a research assistant in West Africa, a Sierra Leonean, and I would try to say to him. Pretend like you're on the moon when you go out and report like no one's been to the moon. What does it look like? What does it smell like? You know, what is it? What does it feel like? What are the sounds that you hear? And incorporate that, like, sprinkle it into your reporting. Because I think that's really, really just makes a story stand out from other boring. He said, she said stuff.

Okay. Working with photographers.

Oh, man, I love working with photographers. It's one of my favorite things about the New York Times is getting to work with great photographers. My brother's a photojournalist, and so I grew up kind of as his sidekick in the dark room back when there were darkrooms. And so I really find that photographer just can. You can learn so much by getting up early in the morning. You know, photographers are always chasing light, like that sort of horizontal light at the beginning of the day and the end of the day. And so my reporting either won't be started or will be 100% wrapped up. And the photographer wants to go out. And I go out, too, because even it helps again with those little details. Or they might meet someone who will completely change the trajectory of my reporting. And then I want to bend there, and then that person will be gone. And I just. I can't ever let a photographer go out without me. It's just. I can't do it if it's my story. Like, I want to be beside them, and I want to have that partnership. I want to talk to them and them to, like, be part of the story process. Because that partnership, I think, is so important. And it's really rare in newsrooms these days. Like, a lot of. A lot of newsrooms don't hire photographers. They can't afford it. It's expensive. It's. You know, they'll run a wire photo. And I think stories really, really, like, lack when that happens. And the Times does this great job of visual journalism and displaying things.

Okay.

Now, working with fixers.

Working with fixers can be really tricky. I mean, fixers are colleagues, and you have to choose your colleagues. And so there's personality involved. I mean, I found that my predecessor, he left me a list of fixers that he used in places, and he kind of liked the strong male personality type. And I don't. And so I found out pretty quickly. Just. I just. That's. I'm not into that. And so I would try to. You want to find a local journalist who knows the situation, who knows the scene, who other people have Used. Other. Other reporters have used before. So, you know, they're straight up. You want to make sure they're not paying people, because that is something that some organizations from other countries or maybe even your own country, you know, if they. There's an unethical journalist out there and they're having the fixer pay someone, you have to sniff that out. And you just like, you can't do that.

Paying the fixer to pay someone to do what?

Yeah, to tell you things, to talk to you. Like, a lot of people in poor places, you know, really want to be paid for interviews and. Or bribed. You know, bribe. I'm going to bribe this cop to tell me, you know, it's stuff. I'm sure that kind of stuff happens, like in our own country. Country with some seedy organizations. But I think you have to make sure, you know, in. In. In certain countries, that's kind of a way of life. Just journalism standards are different. And so you have to be careful that that is not happening straight up. And you have to pay a fair wage and you have to worry about their safety. Because as a foreign journalist, I can fly out of somewhere. I have a major newspaper willing to get me out of any situation and go to any means to rescue me if I'm in trouble, if I make a government official angry or caught mad and get thrown in jail. But local journalists don't have that luxury. Sometimes they can't even get a visa to get out. And they're gonna get flack if you make a government official mad. And then you're back in your home office just tooling around and they're stuck with it. So their safety and security is so, so, so important. And I just became very, very close to a lot of my fixers. They're very good friends. And, yeah, I think that's really important.

Can you give us some examples of publications and journalists that you admire?

I like reporters and journalists and photographers who have. You can really see their soul in their. In their work. I think our correspondent from Afghanistan, Mujeeb, who is about to go to India and work from there, is one of the most amazing. You know, his work, he just pours his soul into all his stories. Azum. What is Azum's last name? Now you're, like, putting me on the spot. We have our Mexico correspondents who are really great at the New York Times. All of them have really just put their heart into their work. My colleague who's a freelancer, Ashley Gilbertson, he's a photographer. And his empathy for the subjects that he photographs. He does a lot of work for our opinion section sometimes, but also the new side. And his empathy really shows through in his work. I think these are largely New York Times people, sorry to say.

That's a little self referential.

Yeah. If you're not reading Stephanie McCrummon at the Washington Post, you're completely missing out. She does nice little like kind of moments in time stories and just her coverage of the coronavirus. Anything she writes about is just completely rock solid, amazing, and will blow you away.

How do you get your news?

I read my newspaper a lot and I also have all these weird Twitter accounts that I find follow from West Africa still that I'm kind of like different reporters or different publications that I really like. I read the Washington Post and I. I like to check in on the newspapers where I've worked at before. The Wall Street Journal, the Seattle Times, Newsday, the Chicago Tribune. But I also read the Omaha World Herald a lot and just to keep up with what's going on in the Midwest because I find that, that that's. We just often ignore huge swaths of the country that have a lot to say and that shape what is going on for all of us, especially in the election. The Madison, Wisconsin newspaper is really great too, in terms of just, you know, that's a swing state and now with the shooting in Kenosha, that happen, like that's a really important place and knowing what's happening. I mean, I love local newspapers. I always get the local paper wherever I go.

So one thing you did not say is you did not say I forced myself to watch Fox or read Breitbart or Blaze to get a contrarian opinion.

That's true. I don't watch a lot of TV at all. But when I travel, when I'm in a car on long stretches on the road, I definitely listen to conservative AM radio. And I like to find the local conservative stations too, that have like local radio celebrities, I guess, who have news shows. I love to hear even, even the ad on conservative radio, I feel like can give you a sense for what people are feeling. Like a lot of ads for like home security systems and things like that. Because I think that gives you a sense like people feel like they're under threat. Oh, okay. I get it. That's who the audiences are playing to. I love listening to other points of view. I mean, my Facebook feed is all my friends and family from Nebraska, you know, a lot of conservatives. And so I really like looking at what, what all sides of everybody are Talking about and thinking about and writing about right now. I think it's fascinating.

Two last questions. Okay, so second to the last question. After all of this, working for these publications all over the world covering this, all these kinds of tragedies and pain and suffering and also good stuff. Where are, are you now mentally.

Thinking about whether my kids school is going to be online or not. Boy, I mean, this pandemic has really put us in a tailspin. Right. But what I was doing before, what I'm still doing now is writing about divides in America. I'm doing political features on political divides. And I think that mentally for me is I'm drawing a lot of parallels to what I saw in West Africa. I'm, I'm missing going out in the field in, in maybe a little more adrenaline filled conditions. That's definitely a bit of a bummer and a letdown, but I think that's true for everybody. But I'm trying to, I, I think mentally I'm just trying to convey America in a way that as, as a foreign country because I think a lot of, of parts of America to people of any political part of the spectrum are foreign and we're so divided at where we're at that I think that, you know, really, really giving a detailed look and using, you know, channeling empathy and doing all the things I did while I was abroad to write about America are really important right now too.

Are you hopeful?

I don't know, man. Yeah, sure.

That's a hell of an answer right there.

I mean, I'm definitely a glass half empty kind of outlook. Ask my husband. It drives him crazy. I really, really have a negative outlook on everything always. But that said. Yeah, you know, I hope. I don't know, I don't know. Are you hopeful?

I'm. My glass is always three quarters full.

That's nice.

So that's just in my DNA. So.

Good, good. We'll see what happens with the election. We'll see if there's a vaccine. We'll see all these things. And I think going out on the streets in New York and seeing people still doing crazy stuff and eating outside and having a good time or wearing their masks and doing, going about their life. Sure. There's, there's some hope.

Okay, so I picked this up in the middle of this interview that I should ask you this question which is, is there anything I didn't ask you that you want to communicate?

No, no, no, I think, I think we covered. Thank you for doing that. I think we covered everything.

No, that can't be true. I'm gonna apply to the New York Times.

I think. What could I say are, you know, it was interesting working for the New York Times abroad when it was under fire by the Trump administration. It's interesting being back now and knowing that people, we do have this target kind of for a certain set of people on the left and the right who don't like the New York Times. So I think that that is one thing that a lot of reporters are trying to figure out how to manage right now. And we just keep doing our job. And I think that that's. It's really important. I think reading the newspaper and reading local newspapers, it's just so important. And trying to instill those values into kids, and I try to make my kids read the front page every day. I'm not always successful. But, you know, I think those, those kinds of things are really important to our country and our democracy. Whether you agree with things that are in the papers or not and correspond and talk about, talk about race, talk about the issues that are out there. I think that that's a important part of what's happening right now.

I've covered everything I wanted to cover, and I really appreciate you doing this. I'll send you a bag of rice if you.

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Okay, time to read you a couple of reviews. I just love the focus on this podcast. Finding those remarkable people and getting into their stories, their own lives, and finding finding out who they truly are. One of my favorites is the episode with Martha Nino. Being that I am an immigrant myself, sometimes we don't see how remarkable we humans really are. Thank you, Guy, for bringing those stories to us. I say download every single episode of this podcast and listen to them all, because that's where you'll find your true successes that you can use for yourself. And Guy Kawasaki has a knack for finding those jokes jams. Love it. That's from Polish Peter. One more review. At age 8, my daughter wrote a report on Jane Goodall. She's now 11. And a while back, we listened to the remarkable podcast with Jane. At the time, I knew she was attentive, but I wasn't sure what stuck. This week, she announced she wants to give up beef. Why, I ask? She answered with Jane would approve. She tied it back to Jane and how global warming is affecting animals around the planet and how cows, as she learned in the Netflix Explained series, contribute to global warming. So she wants to play her part in less meat consumption. Thank you, Guy. And Jane for telling the stories that inspire action in all ages. That's from Rain Mom. Thank you, Rain mom. And thank you, Polish Peter. Go to the Apple podcast app and write a review too. I'd be happy to read it back to Dion Cersei. I hope you get the idea. Dion is a remarkable reporter. Just learning about what she's covered scares me. It must be great to look back at one's body of work and see how much truth it brought to light. My thanks to Holly Brady for suggesting Dion for Remarkable People and then helping make it happen. My thanks to Peg Fitzpatrick and Jeff, who help bring this podcast to light every week. I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. Remember, wash your hands, maintain a social distance, don't go into crowded bars and restaurants and wear a mask. But above all, listen to doctors and scientists, not politicians. Until next time, mahalo and aloha. This episode of Remarkable People is brought to you by Remarkable Remarkable, the paper tablet company. This is remarkable people.