| 1 | Name: | Mr. Nicholas D. Kristof | |
| Institution: | The New York Times | ||
| Year Elected: | 2011 | ||
| Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | ||
| Subdivision: | 502. Physicians, Theologians, Lawyers, Jurists, Architects, and Members of Other Professions | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1959 | ||
Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times since November 2001, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who writes op-ed columns that appear twice a week. He was awarded the inaugural Aurora Humanitarian Journalism Award for his reporting on human rights abuses and social injustices in 2020. He attempted a run for Governor of Oregon in 2022. Mr. Kristof grew up on a sheep and cherry farm near Yamhill, Oregon. He graduated from Harvard College, Phi Beta Kappa, and then won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he studied law and graduated with first class honors. He later studied Arabic in Cairo and Chinese in Taipei. After working in France, he caught the travel bug and began backpacking around Africa and Asia, writing articles to cover his expenses. Mr. Kristof has lived on four continents, reported on six, and traveled to more than 150 countries, plus all 50 states, every Chinese province and every main Japanese island. He’s also one of the very few Americans to be at least a two-time visitor to every member of the "Axis of Evil." During his travels, he has had unpleasant experiences with malaria, mobs and an African airplane crash. After joining The New York Times in 1984, initially covering economics, he served as a correspondent in Los Angeles and as bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo. In 2000, he covered the presidential campaign, and he is the author of the chapter on George W. Bush in the reference book The Presidents. He later was Associate Managing Editor of the Times, responsible for Sunday editions. In 1990 Mr. Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, until recently also a Times journalist, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China’s Tiananmen Square movement. They were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism. Mr. Kristof won a second Pulitzer in 2006, for what the judges called "his graphic, deeply reported columns that, at personal risk, focused attention on genocide in Darfur." Mr. Kristof has also won other prizes including the George Polk award, the Overseas Press Club award, the Michael Kelly award, the Online News Association award, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors award. Mr. Kristof has taken a special interest in Web journalism and was the first blogger on The New York Times Web site; he has a Facebook fan page and a channel on Youtube, as well as nearly 1 million followers on Twitter. In his column, Mr. Kristof was an early opponent of the Iraq war, was among the first to warn that we were losing ground in Afghanistan, and has regularly focused attention on global poverty, health and gender issues, as well as climate change. Since 2004, he has written dozens of columns about Darfur and has visited the region around Darfur eleven times. Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn are authors of three best-selling books: China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power in 1994; Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia in 2000; and Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide in 2009. Their most recent book, A Path Appears, was published in 2014. Mr. Kristof is also the subject of an HBO documentary executive-produced by Ben Affleck, "Reporter," and serves on the boards of Harvard University and the American Association of Rhodes Scholars. He has received a number of honorary doctorates and other honors. Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn are the parents of three children. Mr. Kristof enjoys running, backpacking, and having his Chinese and Japanese corrected by his children. | |||