This Vermont Conversation was originally published on May 15, 2024.

Nicholas Kristof has been an eyewitness to some of the most iconic political and social transformations of modern times. As a reporter and columnist for the New York Times for the last four decades, Kristof has been telling searing stories about revolutions, genocides, and the impact of global inequality. His work has garnered the top prizes in journalism, including two Pulitzer Prizes. The first was in 1990 for his coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests in China that he shared with his wife, reporter Sheryl WuDunn, the first Pulitzer awarded to a husband-wife team. They have also co-authored five books.

Since 2001, Kristof has been a regular op-ed columnist for the Times. His powerful dispatches about the genocide in Darfur earned him a second Pulitzer in 2006. The former head of the International Rescue Committee said that Kristof’s coverage saved hundreds of thousands of lives in Sudan. 

Kristof has now written a memoir, “Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life.” He tells the story of growing up on a sheep and cherry farm in rural Oregon, and then attending Harvard and Oxford. He continues to focus his reporting on human rights, global health, poverty and gender inequality. 

In 2021, Kristof left the Times to run for governor of Oregon, but his foray into politics was cut short a few months later when the Oregon Secretary of State ruled that as a result of living and working out of state for years, he did not meet residency requirements. He returned to his job as a columnist for the New York Times.

Despite reporting from some of the world’s grimmest places, Kristof remains stubbornly optimistic. “One thing you see on the front lines, that I’ve seen, is that there has been a real arc of both material and moral progress, and that has left a deep impression on me,” he said. “Side by side with the worst of humanity, you end up encountering the best.”

Kristof has seen authoritarian regimes up close, only to come home to see authoritarianism creeping into American politics. Is he worried about the fate of democracy in the U.S.? “It’s not a binary question, but a spectrum,” he replied. 

“I don’t think that the U.S. will become North Korea or China or Russia. But could we become Hungary? Or could we become Poland under the previous government? I think absolutely. I worry about political violence … DOJ, the military could all be heavily politicized, civil service. I worry about all that. I don’t think that I will be sentenced to Guantanamo. But could there be real impairment of democracy, of governance of freedoms? Absolutely. And I, you know, I’ve seen that in other countries.”

Kristof continues to report on human rights abuses and repression, but he insists that he is guided by hope. “I think of despair as sometimes just paralyzing, while hope can be empowering.”