Kristoff Essay

Here's the essay that may or may not win me a trip to Africa with an award-winning journalist.

As with any essay contest, entrants feel the need to be clever and capture the contest judges with their prose. As I sit here and ask myself why I would like to go on a reporting trip with Nick Kristoff, it’s difficult to be witty.

I have been trained to tell other peoples’ stories. I do so by talking to them, asking them about the who, when, where and how. I let them do the talking and then write an article I hope someone somewhere will find interesting enough to read.

Here’s my story.

On March 18, 1987, a letter was sent airmail from the United States to Liberia with the news, “Your sister has given birth to a baby girl, Kathrine Page Warren.” I was that new bundle of joy, and the recipient was my mom’s younger brother, Paul, who worked in rural development for the Peace Corps on Liberia’s border with Sierra Leone.

He returned home shortly before civil war broke out in the country, and later went to Guinea-Bissau to train more Peace Corps volunteers. My cool, hip Uncle Paul always has provided me with a view of the developing world in Africa, which is otherwise hard to come by in Southwest Colorado. Now, almost 22 years after he received that letter, I would like to visit Africa, or any country in the developing world.

My mother runs Southwest Colorado’s National Public Radio affiliate station and my father works as a freelance photographer for groups such as the Nature Conservancy and Smithsonian Magazine, so it seems only fitting for me to find my niche in the media world.

I have considered myself a journalist since high school. I found my voice through writing for my school’s newspaper. Since then, I have written for the student paper at the University of Colorado at Boulder, a daily paper in my hometown of Durango, Colo., and now I work for a political weekly newspaper in Denver. I will graduate in May with a bachelor’s in news-editorial journalism and an international media certificate.

My story topics have run the gamut. I have written a feature on a man turning 100 years old. I Twittered from and wrote about John McCain’s campaign stop in Durango. I sat in on humanitarian Greg Mortenson’s visit with students at Fort Lewis College. I even followed Colorado’s national Obama delegates at the Inauguration. I’m also scheduled to cover Thomas Friedman when he visits CU-Boulder’s campus Feb. 16.

In addition to writing traditional news stories, I gather and produce audio content for podcasts, I am a decent photographer, I enjoy blogging and I edit video footage (though I don’t enjoy being in front of the camera, which is why I’m submitting an essay).

I have covered many interesting topics, but I believe I am ready for something greater. I haven’t been able to step outside of my middle-class mindset and do something more with my journalistic passion.

In the late ’90s, my father would send my brother and I faxes from Siberia, India or Hungary as a way of updating our family about his work overseas. He travels to all parts of the world on various freelance assignments. I am grateful to have inherited his wanderlust. With just the meager budget of a college student, I backpack or camp in Utah’s deserts and Colorado’s wilderness, or go on week-long rafting trips. I have visited Western Europe twice and, at one point, was proficient in French, although now it could use a refresher.

When I graduate in May, I would like to follow my father’s path overseas, but with a recorder and notebook in hand instead of a camera. I crave overseas travel outside the First World. I want to travel abroad and meet people of all walks of life and tell their untold stories.

That’s why I admire and envy Nick Kristoff. Essentially, I want to do what he does. Winning this trip would not only provide me with a unique travel opportunity, but it also would allow me to see how a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist works. This trip would give me with the most valuable experience in international media and journalism I wouldn’t find anywhere else.