Topic: Nicholas Kristof

Nicholas Donabet Kristof (born April 27, 1959 in Chicago, Illinois) is 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 is widely known for bringing to light human rights abuses in Asia and Africa, such as human trafficking and the Darfur conflict. He has lived on four continents, reported on six, and traveled to 140 countries and all 50 states. According to his blog, during his travels he has had "unpleasant experiences with malaria, wars, an Indonesian mob carrying heads on pikes, and an African airplane crash". Jeffrey Toobin of CNN and The New Yorker, a Harvard classmate, has said: "I’m not surprised to see him emerge as the moral conscience of our generation of journalists. I am surprised to see him as the Indiana Jones of our generation of journalists.”

Ann Curry of NBC wrote in her blog that she was once asked to name a modern journalist who showed courage and leadership comparable to the great Edward R. Murrow, but couldn't immediately think of one. Curry, who traveled with Kristof to Darfur, wrote that she later concluded that the best analogy was to Kristof: "The crazy thing is that Kristof in real life is an exceedingly cautious man,... unassuming, disarmingly sweet, mild-mannered guy... interviewing people in a village preparing for a Janjaweed attack... I don't know what Kristof would think about being compared to a TV journalist. Newspaper reporters are notoriously snooty about television news. But no matter what Kristof thinks, he is, in his commitment to the fundamental ideals of news reporting, comparable to the great Murrow."

Kristof's books, all co-authored with his wife Sheryl WuDunn, include China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power (1994), Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia and the forthcoming Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Knopf, September 2009).