Why I'm Leaning Into the Moniker "Humanitarian Journalist"

New academic research explains how I've helped to pioneer of an emerging form of journalism

Several years ago, I received a request for an interview from an academic in the United Kingdom named Martin Scott who was doing journalism-related research. He’s a professor of Media and Global Development at the University of East Anglia and had some questions about how I go about my work. My interview was one of hundreds that helped inform the new book:  Humanitarian Journalists: Covering Crises from a Boundary Zone by Martin Scott, and coauthors Mel Bunce, and Kate Write -- all of whom are academics. 

As Martin Scott explains, he set out researching deficiencies in how mainstream outlets cover crises around the world. But in the process, he and his co-authors discovered that there are a small number of professional journalists who are charting a very different course. The book explicitly cites my work, as well as that of a few others journalists and outlets, who do what they identify as “humanitarian journalism.”

In this book, we show that there are a small but influential number of…