Chasing Hope With Journalism

by Fran Withrow 06.2026

Nicholas D. Kristof is a Pulitzer Prize winner who is currently an op-ed writer for The New York Times. I picked up his memoir, “Chasing Hope,” and was immediately mesmerized by his life story.  This courageous journalist could not have picked a more timely moment to write about his profession. In just a few short years, trust in traditional media and in journalists themselves has waned alarmingly. But Kristof is a writer with integrity, and he is full of insights about how challenging, important, and life-altering the life of a dedicated journalist can be.

I love that Kristof’s authenticity shines through each page. His moral code consistently compels him to tell stories that raise awareness, bring about much needed change, and even save lives. He says that journalism is a way to “shine a light on what can be changed in the world, even as some people profit from the darkness.”

Journalism, in Kristof’s mind, is an act of conviction. Sharing stories about genocide, sex trafficking, women’s rights, and other critical issues around the world can be transformative. Kristof has traveled everywhere in his search for meaningful stories. From Sudan, Darfur, and Ghana, to Fiji, Iraq and Beijing, Kristof’s international reporting has opened the door to understanding for a vast number of readers. He writes to solve problems and restore trust, to ease the polarization of our country, to share verified news rather than sensationalized tidbits.

More than once he has risked his life to get a story. But the potential danger applies not only to himself. He muses over what his moral duty is regarding the safety of those who travel with him, and to those he interviews. In his quest to tell the world about critical issues with life-altering repercussions, where should he draw the line?

Kristof was hired by the New York Times in 1984 and has held a variety of positions there. His insights about working in the news room are just as intriguing—although not as harrowing— as his eyewitness accounts of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the Arab Spring rebellion.

Here in the U.S., Kristof has written about several of our recent presidents, including Carter, Bush, Obama, Biden, and Trump. (Spoiler alert: Trump does not come off well.) Kristof even ran once for governor of Oregon, giving him fresh insights into the relationship between politicians and journalists. It also gave him clues as to how Democrats have lost rural voters, and how that can be addressed. Likewise, reading about how our political system skews toward seniors rather than children is a real eye-opener.

It sounds like this would be heavy reading, but it’s not. Kristof writes with unrelenting optimism and humor. His humility and willingness to admit his mistakes and learn from them is refreshing, and his quest for the truth as a means of protecting democracy and exposing injustice is laudable. He sees the current risk Trump brings to our country, but remains positive. “Inconsistently,” Kristof explains, “often ineffectively, we try to fight war, poverty and disease with our fragile tools: a laptop, a phone, a camera—-and we chase hope.”