Ten years ago the podcast industry was in its infancy and the format of Global Dispatches was a bit different than it is today. I would sit down with people who had interesting lives or careers in international affairs and interview them about their life and career, with digressions about the historic foreign policy moments in which their or career intersected. I did around 200 of these longform biographical interviews over the first several years of the podcast. These interviews are mostly behind a paywall at this point, and unlocked for paying subscribers via Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

For today, I wanted to bring everyone my 2016 conversation with Clarissa Ward, CNN's Chief International Correspondent. At the time, Clarissa Ward had recently snuck into rebel held territory in Syria. We kick off with a conversation about the mechanics of sneaking into a conflict zone and the risks that war reporting entails. We then have a long conversation about how and why she became a journalist, including her time in Beirut and Baghdad.

Get more episodes like this by becoming a premium subscriber. For Apple Podcasts, upgrade directly in the app. To access these bonus episodes on Spotify, go here. https://www.patreon.com/GlobalDispatches