A veteran foreign correspondent looks back on a career covering conflicts

Summary

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Consider This from NPR

Episode: A veteran foreign correspondent looks back on a career covering conflicts
Date: July 11, 2026
Host: Don Gonyea
Guest: Jackie Northam, veteran NPR international correspondent

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Don Gonyea sits down with Jackie Northam, one of NPR’s longest-serving international correspondents, as she reflects on her decades-long career reporting from global conflict zones. Northam shares personal stories from her early days, including the harrowing experience of covering the Rwandan genocide, and opens up about the emotional toll of witnessing atrocities worldwide. The conversation explores how conflict reporting has changed, the personal risks involved, and the enduring importance of keeping the world informed.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Jackie Northam’s Start in Journalism

• No formal training, driven by determination:
  “I’ve never had any formal education in journalism. I had no experience when I set off from Northern Alberta, Canada... But I was determined... to be a foreign correspondent... I wanted to be where the action was.”
  [01:12]

• Opportunism and tenacity:
  Northam recounts how she seized opportunities to inch closer to her dream, regardless of the hurdles.

2. Covering the Rwandan Genocide

• First major assignment and its risks:
  “I got my real start because I covered the genocide in Rwanda right from the very beginning...”
  [00:49]

• Reporting conditions in 1994:
  Northam reflects on the challenges of reporting before today’s technology:
  “When I started, there were no cell phones, no Internet. You sent your material back by unscrewing the mouthpiece on a phone and using alligator clips..."
  [03:19]

• Harsh realities of access and safety:
  She entered Rwanda by hitchhiking from Burundi, as airports were closed.
  “We actually had to hitchhike in from Burundi... We found a French priest who would take us into Rwanda. It was an extraordinarily dangerous assignment. The rule of law had completely disappeared.”
  [04:57]

2.1. Near-Death Experience:

• Being stopped at a checkpoint:
  “As we got closer to Kigali... they surrounded our car and they thought that I was Belgian... they wanted to kill me.”
  [06:10]

  • Northam describes the moment when a Hutu militia pressed a machete to her neck and how quick thinking by her colleague and her Canadian passport helped her survive:
    • “My fingers were completely numb and I couldn’t... I was shaking so badly... He saw I was Canadian, and Jean Lark did his magic and... we went through.”
      [07:04]

• Didn’t reconsider her calling:
  “No, no, no, no, no. I’ve never ever reconsidered my career choice.”
  [07:55]

3. The Changing Landscape of Conflict Reporting

• Increase in global conflicts:
  Gonyea notes:
  “Global conflicts are on the rise, the highest level since World War II.”
  [07:59]

• Challenge of keeping the audience engaged:
  “At the beginning, all eyes are on [a new conflict]... The problem is it’s a protracted conflict and a fatigue sets in... The challenge is to keep their interest, to remind them why this is important... it is a challenge to report on this stuff, you know, without... you can't be unaffected by it.”
  [08:29]

• Cumulative emotional toll
  Northam acknowledges the personal impact:
  “It becomes cumulative. You know, it builds up inside you... I have no capacity for reading or watching or hearing anything sad, certainly anything violent... It’s hard to read a newspaper because there’s just so much bad news...”
  [10:12]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the urge to report from the frontlines:
  “If I’m sitting here in Nairobi and I want to pretend I want to be a foreign correspondent... and that story’s happening next door, and there’s so few reporters going in that I had to go back in.”
  — Jackie Northam, [04:57]

• On living with trauma:
  “I just have no capacity for reading or watching or hearing anything sad, certainly anything violent... because there’s just so much bad news.”
  — Jackie Northam, [10:12]

• On the role of deadlines:
  “It’s almost like you can take cover under the fact that you have a deadline, right. But then you hit the deadline and then it hits you.”
  — Don Gonyea, [10:01]

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Important Timestamps

• [00:14] — Excerpt from Northam’s 1994 Rwanda tape
• [01:12] — Northam discusses her non-traditional beginnings in journalism
• [03:19] — Describing the logistics and technology of early conflict reporting
• [04:57] — Account of entering Rwanda during the genocide; decision to return under great danger
• [06:10] — Narration of machete checkpoint incident
• [07:04] — Escape from life-threatening situation
• [08:29] — Thoughts on reporting protracted conflicts and audience engagement
• [10:12] — Northam discusses the cumulative toll of witnessing tragedy

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Tone & Atmosphere

Jackie Northam speaks with candor, gravitas, and self-deprecating humor, offering honest insights into the pressures and perils of front-line journalism. Don Gonyea’s tone is empathetic and admiring, steering the conversation with respect and curiosity. The conversation is both urgent and reflective, weaving together the personal and the professional.

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Summary

This episode is a powerful look at the life of a journalist drawn to tumult and tragedy—not for the thrill, but for the imperative to bear witness and tell the world. Northam’s accounts of courage, trauma, and devotion to truthful reporting offer a window into the personal costs of documenting history’s darkest hours, and the enduring need to shine a light on crisis, even as the world’s attention drifts.

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Transcript

[Don Gonyea]

It's Consider this where every day we go deep on one big news story. For today's episode, I want to start with a recording from more than 30 years ago.

[Jackie Northam (reporting in Rwanda)]

In a tiny outdoor kitchen, a Mabla Uruwukundu makes dinner for her husband, Emmanuel and their young son, Christian. They're Tutsis, the minority ethnic group in Rwanda.

[Don Gonyea]

You're hearing NPR's Jackie Northam in Rwanda in 1994, back when she reported for the CBC, she'd hitchhiked there just days after the genocide began. The tape survived on a cassette she recently rediscovered while packing up her office ahead of retirement.

[Jackie Northam (reporting in Rwanda)]

Emmanuel knew that being Tutsis, he and his family were in danger.

[Jackie Northam]

I guess in many ways, I got my real start because I covered the genocide in Rwanda right from the very beginning to the very end.

[Don Gonyea]

For this week's Reporter's Notebook, we're listening back with one of NPR's longest serving international correspondents about how she got there, what kept her going, and why some stories never really left her.

[Jackie Northam]

Well, I gotta tell you, I've never had any formal education in journalism. I had no experience when I set off from Northern Alberta, Canada, to London. But I was determined, dawn, to be a foreign correspondent. It was I just that's who I wanted to be. I wanted to be where the action was. And whenever I saw an opportunity to forward that, I would grab onto it.

[Don Gonyea]

Consider this, what lessons has a life chasing history taught one of NPR's longest serving foreign correspondents. Coming up, we hear from veteran correspondent Jackie Northam about a life spent reporting on conflict around the world. From npr, I'm Don Gonyea.

[Wait Wait Don't Tell Me Host]

This week on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell me, we talked to legendary musician Jason Narducci about being in a punk band when he was just 11 years old. We broke up when I was 12.

[Jackie Northam]

And yeah, I just felt like I

[Wait Wait Don't Tell Me Host]

needed to go through puberty without band drama. Don't miss our full conversation and the rest of our games. Listen to the Wait, Wait, don't tell Me podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts,

[NPR Sports Commentator]

whether you're dedicated to a team, I want to see them win. Rooting for a nation.

[Don Gonyea]

I'm not even a soccer fan, but I'm just repping my people or just

[NPR Sports Commentator]

appreciate the joy the beautiful game inspires.

[Jackie Northam]

No Scotland, no party.

[NPR Sports Commentator]

Find the World cup tab in the NPR app, home to all of NPR's coverage on and off the pitch.

[Don Gonyea]

NPR's international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam followed history wherever it unfolded, from the fall of communism in Eastern Europe to the first Gulf War in Saudi Arabia, then Cambodia, Kenya, and even the Arctic.

[Jackie Northam]

When I started, there were no cell phones, no Internet. You sent your material back by unscrewing the mouse piece on a phone and using alligator clips, you know, and then many years down the road, they had satellite phones, but, you know, they were size of a compact car.

[Don Gonyea]

You walk in some business or some office and you beg them to let you use your phone.

[Jackie Northam]

Or the military. Yeah, there, exactly.

[Don Gonyea]

I'm sure people wonder how you do what you do. Can you pick a big, big story you were deployed on and maybe give us some of the nuts and bolts? How did you get there? How did you get in and how did you get out? How did you file?

[Jackie Northam]

I think it would still be Rwanda. I had just moved to Nairobi. I'd been there about two months, just enough time to find a place to live. And cbc, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, called me and asked me if I could go into Rwanda. A plane carrying the presidents of both Rwanda and neighboring Burundi had crashed. And at that moment, it unleashed a long planned and let me say, well orchestrated genocide. Militias from the majority Hutu tribe were slaughtering Tutsis, and they were using mostly machetes and they were clubbing people to death. And this was in 1994. It started in April, and I went in four days after it started.

[Jackie Northam (reporting in Rwanda)]

A young woman suffering from deep machete wounds to her arms and stomach lies on a bloodied stretcher in a makeshift hospital room. Around her are almost a dozen other injured people who've just been carried in by Rwandan government soldiers.

[Jackie Northam]

We actually had to hitchhike in from Burundi. They had closed the airports in Rwanda, and we flew into Burundi. We found a French priest who would take us into Rwanda. It was an extraordinarily dangerous assignment. The rule of law had completely disappeared. We were vulnerable as much as the Tutsis were at that time, the minority group that was being slaughtered. But, you know, once I got out that first time, I'd had a machete held to my neck. It was really dangerous. It was really disturbing. Just the slaughter that was going on came out, went back to Nairobi, and at that point, I really had to decide, do I want to go back in? And it's difficult because it was so dangerous in there. But I just felt that if I'm sitting here in Nairobi and I'm want to pretend I want to be a foreign correspondent, you know what I. And that story's happening next door, and there's so few reporters going in that I had to go Back in, that really was the most difficult place to operate in, as you can imagine.

[Don Gonyea]

In the middle of that answer, you just said, along with other things, that you had a machete held to your neck. How did that happen? What were the circumstances? Talk about that moment.

[Jackie Northam]

Yeah, well, we had traveled up. After we hitchhiked in, somebody rented us a car. There were four of us, myself and three men. You know, when we were going in, we just saw this wave of humanity going the other way. They were trying to escape. And that really says something about what you do for a living when you're going one way and, you know, the sea of humanity is going the other. But we started seeing roadblocks, checkpoints all the way up and a lot of dead bodies on the side of the road. And as we got closer to Kigali, the capital city, we were stopped and they surrounded our car and they thought that I was Belgian. I'm blonde and blue eyed and. And they hate the Belgians. They had colonized Rwanda brutally. And, yeah, they, they, they wanted to kill me. And.

[Jackie Northam (reporting in Rwanda)]

Yeah.

[Don Gonyea]

How did you, how did you get out of that? Did you have a Canadian passport?

[Jackie Northam]

I did. It took me a long time to try and get that out of my jean pockets. I did. On my shirt. Like, my, My fingers were completely numb and I couldn't. I was shaking so badly, of course. But what saved me was one I was traveling with, Jean Marc. He was a AP Photo, Associated Press photographer, and he was French, and they loved the French in Rwanda. And, you know, he just kept talking to this Hutu militia man with his, you know, with the machete to my throat and just, bon homi, you know, he's just laughing, joking with him, keeping it going, just trying to make friends with them. And it worked. I, I got my passport out. He saw I was Canadian, and Jean Lark did his magic and. And he pulled back and we went through. Yeah.

[Don Gonyea]

Did you ever seriously reconsider your career choice after that moment?

[Jackie Northam]

No, no, no, no, no. I've never ever reconsidered my career choice.

[Don Gonyea]

So. There's a recent study that says global conflicts are on the rise, the highest level, since World War II. And living in this particular moment seems to be particularly intense for so many people around the world. How does that impact the work that you do, the fact that there are so many conflicts affecting so many people in so many places?

[Jackie Northam]

Well, it's tough. I mean, if we look at just recent things with the war in Gaza, it's very difficult at the beginning, all eyes are on that. Everybody's interested in it. They want to know all the bits and turns that. That go on. The problem is it's a protracted conflict and a fatigue sets in, whether it's, you know, for the listeners or the viewers or the readers and that where it becomes incremental and they don't lose interest, but they tune out in some ways. And the challenge is to keep their interest, to remind them why this is important to know and to keep on top of. That's one of the. One of the real challenges. And we're seeing that a bit in Iran right now. This is getting dragged out. And it's so important, really, not only for the world, but for the US but the world as well. And so it's important to find new ways or find ways of, you know, informing people without making it sound repetitive. But, you know, it's really hard when you do these stories, and I've been doing them for so long, you know, just that it can get to you. It really can. You just see suffering, you see sort of senselessness, you seeing cruelty, that type of thing. It is a challenge to report on this stuff, you know, without you, I don't think you can be unaffected by it. And so, yeah, so the big thing is to just keep trying to tell it in ways that people will be interested because it is important.

[Don Gonyea]

It's almost like you can take cover under the fact that you have a deadline, right. But then you hit the deadline and. And. And then it hits you. Is that kind of what you're saying?

[Jackie Northam]

It's even more than that. I mean, it's 40 years I've been doing this stuff, and it becomes cumulative. You know, it builds up inside you. And I just. I was telling somebody the other day, frankly, I have no capacity for reading or watching or hearing anything sad, certainly anything violent or that I can't do it. It's hard to read a newspaper because there's just so much bad news, isn't there? You know, it just doesn't seem way.

[Don Gonyea]

Well, Jack. Yeah. Thank you for your work and for your friendship.

[Jackie Northam]

Yeah, thank you, Dawn. It's been great working with you.

[Don Gonyea]

This episode was produced by Lena Muhammad. It was edited by Adam Rainey. Our director is Megan Lim, and our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorney. It's. Consider this from npr. I'm Don Gonyea.

[NPR Sports Commentator]

The knockout phase of the World cup is underway.

[Don Gonyea]

At every stage, the excitement level goes up and up and up, creating core memories with strangers in a foreign land. This is what it's really about.

[NPR Sports Commentator]

Coverage of the highs and Lows from the NPR Network continues. Find the World cup tab in the NPR app for more.

[Keith Diaz]

So you've decided you want to be more active? Exercise scientist Keith Diaz says put away the smartwatch. Start by noticing your body's natural cues.

[Jackie Northam]

For us to build a habit to

[Don Gonyea]

check back in with our bodies, that

[Jackie Northam]

behavior is much more likely to stick.

[Keith Diaz]

Tracking what the body needs. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.