A Worldly Perspective

By Jhazalyn Prince (New York, NY)

I was very excited today because I was able to hear one of my favorite speakers (so far) from the program: Griff Witte. Witte, an experienced Foreign Correspondent and Foreign Editor of the Washington Post, was able to provide a lot of information from a different and worldly perspective of journalism. Although I am not completely sure if that would be the greatest career for me, it gave me a lot of insight. Before his speech I had never really thought about where we get our foreign news. He was also able to give me a boost in confidence; he admitted to being very shy himself, and it showed me that sometimes you don’t have to be a perfectly confident and boisterous person in order to be a good journalist.

In addition to the speech given by Witte, I also enjoyed the workshop with Britt Peterson of Foreign Policy Magazine. She was the first guest speaker to actually engage us in an activity that gave us a sense of what its like to be in the shoes of an editor. This was particularly helpful for me because I have never been very good at editing my own paper; after the activity I felt I had learned how to catch my own mistakes. She was also very sweet and informative about freelance writers.

In one day I was able to learn so much that I can’t even feel how tired I am, and that speaks for itself.