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2021 – News, Propaganda, and Diplomacy

The American Academy of Diplomacy and The Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello

This year’s discussion at Monticello took place on October 30 and welcomed Glyn Davies, David Pearce, Carol Giacomo, and Tyson Reeder to examine, “News, Propaganda, and Diplomacy.” PBS NewsHour foreign affairs and defense correspondent Nick Schifrin delivered the keynote address.



2021  –  News, Propaganda, and Diplomacy

Nick Schifrin, the keynote speaker, is the foreign affairs and defense correspondent for PBS NewsHour, based in Washington, D.C. He leads NewsHour’s foreign reporting and has created week-long, in-depth series for NewsHour from China, Russia, Ukraine, Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, Cuba, Mexico, and the Baltics. The PBS NewsHour series “Inside Putin’s Russia” won a 2018 Peabody Award and the National Press Club’s Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence. In November 2020, Schifrin received the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs.

Prior to PBS NewsHour, Schifrin was Al Jazeera America’s Middle East correspondent. He led the channel’s coverage of the 2014 war in Gaza; reported on the Syrian war from Syria’s Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders; and covered the annexation of Crimea. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his Gaza coverage and a National Headliners Award for his Ukraine coverage.

From 2008-2012, Schifrin served as the ABC News correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2011 he was one of the first journalists to arrive in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after Osama bin Laden’s death and delivered one of the year’s biggest exclusives: the first video from inside bin Laden’s compound. His reporting helped ABC News win an Edward R. Murrow award for its bin Laden coverage.

Schifrin is a Council on Foreign Relations term member and an Overseas Press Club Foundation board member. He has a Master of International Public Policy degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), with a concentration in Strategic Studies.

Keynote Speaker

About the Panelists

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