Journalist Ann Curry Offers Curiosity as Common Ground

When individuals engage with curiosity and recognize their shared humanity, they can have more meaningful conversations, award-winning journalist Ann Curry told an audience at Yale SOM last week.

Curry’s talk, “Curiosity as Common Ground: Finding Humanity in Challenging Conversations,” was moderated by Kimberly Goff-Crews, secretary and vice president for university life at Yale, and co-hosted by the university-wide initiative Cultivating Conversation and Yale Poynter Fellowship in Journalism.

Over her 45-year career, Curry has reported on humanitarian disasters and conflict zones around the world, including in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. She is the recipient of several Emmy and humanitarian awards, the NAACP Excellence in Reporting Award, and the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement in Journalism award. A former Poynter Fellow at Yale and Sine Fellow at American University, she currently serves as an associate fellow of Trumbull College.

During the talk, Curry reflected on her upbringing as the daughter of a Japanese immigrant and U.S. Navy serviceman during a time when interracial marriages were uncommon. Frequent moves broadened her worldview, and political debates with her father—who would say, “Well, Ann, I don’t agree with you, but I’ll defend your right to your own opinion”—sharpened her focus on engaging across difference.

“What’s that thing that lets us do that?” Curry asked the audience. “It’s a recognition that every single human being on this planet has dignity.”

Being present with people we disagree with requires a genuine desire to “see them,” or understand what has shaped their views, Curry said. In interviews with world leaders accused of war crimes and human rights violations, she said, she has used curiosity and humanity as tools to uncover the truth.

Curry recounted the challenge of interviewing Omar al-Bashir, the former Sudanese president accused of perpetrating a genocide in Darfur. In order to pose difficult questions and understand his motivations, Curry said, she had to recognize al-Bashir’s fundamental human dignity. When al-Bashir ultimately faced a trial in the International Criminal Court, the prosecution included Curry’s interview in its documentation. “Humanity is not being soft,” Curry said. “It’s being tough.”

Reflecting on her decades of experience, Curry emphasized that approaching a conversation with curiosity and humanity should not be conflated with condoning injustice.

“I’m not saying there is absolution,” she said. “But we can understand each other better by deeply listening.”