The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

“Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life” by NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is a large but rich memoir of an extraordinary career in journalism.  Perhaps you remember Kristof’s coverage of the slaughter in Darfur, the bloody civil war and mass starvation in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) or the massacre in Hama during the horrific civil war in Syria. Bill Gates was so moved by Kristof’s coverage of certain diseases endemic to third world countries that he and his then-wife set up a foundation to cure those diseases.  Kristof was always a man with a mission, hoping to change the course of history, for nations but also for individuals, seeking uncomfortable truths while others turn their eyes away. This is all the more important today with the decline of international news coverage and major media’s shuttering of overseas bureaus.

He  spent years covering foreign desks in Hong Kong, China, Japan, and elsewhere in the world, drawn to human tragedies as a moth to light. Yet, in many cases, he himself shone the light.  His Catholic father, Kris Kristof, an academic who had fled several countries in Eastern Europe in the 1940’s, spoke seven languages. With the help of two journalists, he had fled Yugoslavia and made his way to America. There he completed his education, married a Chicago Presbyterian, and ended up on a farm in Yamhill, a small town in Oregon, where Nick Kristof grew up. Nick started a school newspaper at the age of 14, and he never strayed from that journalistic course.

Nick Kristof got into Harvard, became a Rhodes Scholar, and spent a year at the Cairo Institute learning Arabic. Along the way, he got an internship at The Washington Post, working on the national desk. He launched his professional career on the West Coast and made it to the NY Times in 1984, everywhere connecting with news luminaries like David Broder and David Shribman and being mentored by legendary  Abe Rosenthal of the Times. While chief of the Times Hong Kong bureau, he was also Asian economics correspondent. From there it was on to Beijing for five years, where he covered Tiananmen Square and the plight of  brutalized dissidents like the Tibetans and Uyghurs. Then it was on to Japan.

In a short review (yes, this is shorter than the book warrants), it is impossible to retell all the important places he covered and the stories he broke. His accounts of various Presidents and other key influencers are rich and insightful. He calls his memoir a “love letter to journalism,” though he has seen it change from reporter’s notebook to more problematic social media posts and podcasts. He doesn’t pull any punches about journalism in general, or his own failures along the way.

Kristof served briefly as weekend editor of the NY Times during a period of unrest and internal dissension at the paper around the turn of this century.  His rise within the Times ranks gave him the freedom to cover stories he felt mainstream media were neglecting, whether it was the Iraq War, gun deaths in the United States, sex trafficking, underage marriages in the United States, poverty and addiction of poorly educated, low-income individuals. His coverage of Oregon’s poverty and urban crime, especially in Portland, surprisingly reinforces some of the issues raised by Donald Trump.

He is harsh on the Democrats for allowing their linguistic battles over naming various identity groups or society’s ills take the place of pragmatic actions to solve social problems. After an unsuccessful run for governor of Oregon, in which he was removed from the ballot by a residency challenge, he used his leftover campaign money to provide job training and fill children’s needs in Oregon. He continued to elevate issues like hunger, addiction and mental health. Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, also a journalist, started a school in Cambodia, to which (full disclosure) my husband and I made small contributions for a couple of years. His writing has generated emotional and financial support from millions of readers.

His style is the lean, straightforward style we expect of solid journalists, and it is amplified by his gift for providing the details that make for great story telling. It is a compelling read.

Kristof makes a strong case that a journalist’s job includes getting people to care about problems that seem remote.  As such, he says, “journalism is an act of hope” and can be “a battering ram on behalf of people suffering injustice.”

Aren’t we lucky that there are still journalists like Kristof and others in that hard-working group that Donald Trump derides as enemies of the people?