Samantha Power: recommendation

Transcript context

…Which personality features make for good wartime correspondents? And are they the same as those which make for good diplomats? They’re similar. Certainly, listening and really trying to see where the people that you’re interviewing, whether policymakers who are failing to or succeeding in managing a conflict or, more likely in the case of a war correspondent, the individuals who are affected by conflict or who are participating in conflict. So really trying to hear what’s motivating them, how they’re affected by conflict. But then — and I think this would also be true of a good diplomat — being able to bridge a distance between the readers or the viewers that you have in mind back in your home country and then these experiences that most of your viewers and readers hopefully will never have themselves. That requires keeping an eye on both and trying to see what is adaptive. What works for a reader — learn from that. If you get a lot of responses to a story because they see themselves in the individuals that you have managed to describe, then chances are that’s something you should try again. So really listening and hearing both sides of the spectrum, I think, as a war correspondent. How risk averse are good diplomats? And does that conflict with what you need to be a good wartime correspondent?…

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