Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the
Liberty and Leadership Podcast,
a conversation with TFAS alumni,faculty and friends who are
making an impact.
Today I'm your host, roger Ream.
It is a pleasure to welcome areturn guest today to the
Liberty and Leadership Podcastjournalist Benjamin Hall.
Ben is the senior correspondentfor the Fox News Channel and a
(00:25):
New York Times bestsellingauthor.
In March of 2022, whilecovering the war in Ukraine,
hall was wounded when his teamwas struck by a series of
incoming Russian missilesoutside of Kiev.
He recounted his harrowingstory of the survival and
recovery that followed in hisbest-selling book Saved A War
(00:46):
Reporter's Mission to Make itHome, published in March of 2023
.
This past March, benjamin Hallpublished a follow-up book
Resolute how we Humans KeepFinding Ways to Beat the
Toughest Odds.
That book will be the subjectof our conversation today.
Ben has spent decades as ajournalist, primarily reporting
(01:08):
from the front lines ofconflicts in the Middle East and
Africa.
He has reported nationally andinternationally for publications
including the New York Times,the Times of London, the Sunday
Times, the Independent and theBBC.
I'm pleased to say that Ben wasalso the recipient of TFAS's
Kenneth Y Tomlinson Award forCourageous Journalism in 2023.
(01:30):
Ben, thank you so much forjoining me today.
That's a great pleasure to behere.
For those who aren't familiarwith what happened to you in
Ukraine when you were coveringthe war there and who may not
have read your first book Saved,would you mind just recounting
or providing a backdrop to yournew book, resolute?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, it was March of
2022 and Fox News and we were
covering the conflict in Ukrainejust after Russia had invaded,
and our team was inside Kiev andwe were reporting on everything
that happens during a war.
I'd covered conflict for over adecade at that point and this
was obviously the biggest landinvasion that we had seen in
(02:12):
Europe since World War II.
It's a major story just outsideKiev, covering the story about
a bombed out village calledHarenka, and we filmed how it
had been obliterated by Russianshelling and it was abandoned.
At the time, there was no onethere.
We were with a couple ofUkrainian military and as we
(02:36):
were driving back towards Kiev,we slowed down at this abandoned
checkpoint and out of the sky,out of of nowhere, came these
shells targeting our car.
The first one missed by about30 feet and quickly the driver
tried to turn the car aroundreverse, but a few seconds later
, the second one landed justalongside the car.
(02:57):
Now that one knocked me out.
I believe that's when I got alot of the facial injuries
shrapnel in the eye and in thethroat and at that moment it
went to total peace, total black.
I could hear, see nothing.
It was all peaceful and at thatmoment I saw my daughter, anna,
in front of me.
She was eight years old and shesaid to me Daddy, you have to
(03:19):
get out of the car.
You have to get out of the caras lifelike as anything.
And it brought me back.
And it came back and suddenlyall this noise.
Everything was happening.
I grabbed for the car of thedoor, I took one step out of the
car and the third shell hit thecar itself.
That one threw me away and Iwoke up a little bit later.
I was on fire.
(03:40):
I was rolling around, I wastrying to put the flames out.
I managed to do that and I wasbadly injured.
That day my right leg was gone,most of my left foot and I had.
It was very badly burned acrossmy body, my left thumb.
And this began this wholejourney of trying to first of
all be saved.
It took about 40 minutes beforewe were found.
I think the saddest part ofthat whole day is my team died.
(04:02):
The rest of my team died thatday Cameron and Pierre fixer,
local producer Sasha, the twoUkrainian soldiers who we were
with.
They all died.
But it began this very brutalthree-day evacuation where some
incredible group called SayorAllies came into Ukraine to find
me.
Despite the accident I'm anAmerican.
They knew an American wasinjured.
They didn't know where I wasfor the initial period and they
(04:23):
had to come in and find me.
Finally they did and they founda way to get me out with all my
injuries and then began thisjourney to recovery and I wrote
about that in Saved, my firstbook, and Resolute is the
follow-up and it's sort of amuch more personal look at some
of the hard moments and how Igot through those.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
We'll talk mostly
about Resolute today.
Just published in the last fewweeks.
We'll talk mostly aboutResolute today.
Just published in the last fewweeks Saved.
I highly recommend anyonelistening today.
It was a New York Timesbestseller.
It's quite an account of heroicactions by so many people, from
doctors and drivers and yourcolleagues at your company, who
all mobilized to make sureyou're with us today, and it's a
(05:02):
great book, you know.
Let me ask this first You'veexperienced some very dramatic
times as a war correspondent,covering conflict in North
Africa, in the Middle East andelsewhere.
Looking back now on that andhaving all these close calls in
your career, where does thatcome from, that desire to cover
these conflicts like that?
And you do touch on that inSaved, but I thought I'd ask
(05:25):
that question today.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I'd say first of all,
I grew up being fascinated by
conflict.
My father was born in thePhilippines.
He was in a Japanese prison ofwar camp at the age of eight.
Most of his family were killedand he was under Japanese
occupation for a few years.
And he was rescued by Americansoldiers at the age of 12, along
with his siblings, and itdefined his life.
(05:49):
He moved to the US, he joinedthe US army, he enlisted and he
served in Korea and our lifegrowing up we were watching John
Wayne films.
It was talking about how warhad affected the family, how he
had been saved and about how theimpact it can have.
And I grew up traveling theworld and so I was fascinated
with different parts of theworld.
(06:09):
You know, my father wasAmerican and I was raised in the
UK, so I had this desire totravel the world.
I wanted to see differentcultures, I was fascinated by
the extremes of human experienceand of conflict and straight
out of college I decided Iwanted to go to Iraq.
I was fascinated by theconflict happening there and
(06:29):
that was the first thing I did.
I was just drawn to it andimmediately I got out there and
I found it fascinating.
The thing about conflict is thatyou know what you see in the
news.
You hear about the violence andthe brutality and the death and
destruction, but you know yousee so much more At the same
time and I write about this inthe book.
You see so much of the opposite.
You see courage and bravery andresilience, and you have these
(06:51):
two incredible things side byside.
And I found conflictfascinating because it happens
at so many different levels.
It happens at the level of, say, the person who has lost their
home has been blown up andthey're at the receiving end of
it.
Then it happens at anotherlevel that can happen to the
tribes.
The economy is affected, thengeopolitics get involved, then
(07:13):
neighboring countries becomeinvolved and suddenly conflict
nowadays is about so manydifferent things and I just
found that I was so drawn to itand once you start covering
conflict, I found it was verydifficult to cover anything else
.
It is something that I wasconstantly drawn to, fascinated
by and just wanted to keep doing.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Your new book,
resolute, is certainly not a
rewrite of your last book, saved.
You cover new ground here andthe ongoing recovery that's
taking place in your life.
You literally had to, in yourown words, relearn how to be
part of the world.
Could you explain now the roleof being resolute and, as you
say, resilience, and howimportant that is, and it's
(07:47):
something you think we all havein us as well.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
The reason I called
the book I wanted to call it
Resolute was because it wasabout this journey through a
traumatic event.
And I talk about resilience andwhat I think about resilience
is that it's in all of us but itrequires hard work.
You can't just naturally beresilient.
You have to set yourself goals,you have to set yourself
targets, you have to fight forwhere you want to get to.
(08:11):
And that's why I wanted to callit Resolute.
And I write about the ups and Iwrite about the downs and I
think that being resilient, youdon't feel resilient when you're
going through it, but you canhave one solid common knowledge,
which is resilience, which isyou can get through it, no
matter how hard it is.
(08:33):
And this book is about thosemoments that felt really
difficult.
For example, the first timethat I was abroad and I remember
I had a little difficulty withmy legs and I was on the floor
somewhere and I was just brokenone day.
And I'm happy to write aboutthose in this book, because I
write about the difficultmoments like that.
I write about the PTSD, I writeabout some of the flashbacks,
but in each case I write abouthow you can stop, you can gather
(08:56):
your thoughts, you think aboutwhat's important, you think
about what can drive you and youpull yourself up, you stand up
or, in my case, you crawl andyou just find a way through.
And I think that's what life isabout, you know.
It's about finding a waythrough.
It's about dealing withdifficult things.
There isn't a single person whohasn't dealt with something
that's difficult, and each andevery one of us has to find a
(09:18):
way through it, and I thinkthat's what I really wanted to
convey in this book.
And, like I went throughsomething traumatic, but this
book is not written just forpeople who have had injuries
like mine.
The same is true if you haveeconomic problems, struggle with
money, or if you have familyissues, or if you're having
troubles at your job, like eachand every one of those, if
you're anxious or you haveanxiety.
That's going to so many peopleand everyone has to find a way
(09:38):
through these.
What I've just tried to do inthis book is I've tried to tell
it as a story and tell about myexperiences, but I hope people
can get from my story some clues, some hints that might help
them through theirs.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, and you use
this phrase in there or I don't
know if it was original to youor the doctors who accused you
of having PTO post-traumaticoptimism syndrome because you
are such a fighter and you dowrite about those dark moments.
That one, where you're on thehotel room floor, was, I think,
a few blocks from where I amtoday, when you came for the
White House CorrespondentsDinner.
You talk about the pain I thinkthere's a chapter called Pain
(10:11):
and you reflect on flashbacks.
You started having Talk aboutthat story when you went on your
first vacation with your familyto Portugal and you were
heading to the beach and a truckwas approaching you.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah, we were driving
along it should have been a
perfect family day and thistruck came up behind us and out
of nowhere, just suddenly out ofnowhere, I believed that it was
full of Taliban, the Talibanhanging out of the back of it,
that they were chasing us.
And it lasted, and it'shappened a few times.
It happens a fair amount, butthat first time was a few
(10:44):
seconds where everything that Ihad experienced came right back
to me, where you immediately getback on action, you don't know
how to escape.
It was a real awakening for me.
I very quickly realized that Ijust needed to talk to my wife
about it, so to tell her aboutthese things.
And again I talk about how, bytalking about these things, you
managed to get rid of them.
I feel it every time the bellrings, depending on the mood I'm
(11:06):
in.
I think the Amazon driver iscoming to raid our house.
You know whoever's behind thatdoor, but I see these as a
consequence of the life I choseto live.
You asked earlier about being awar correspondent and I don't
think any war correspondent isfoolish enough to think that
there won't be some implications.
I have to hope you live in aheightened alert and sense at
times, and so the way I look atthose flashbacks, the way I look
(11:27):
at those moments, is look, Ipicked this life.
There will be knock-ons as aresult of it, but I can handle
those.
I know they're short, I knowthey don't hold me down.
And look, I talk a little bitabout other people who have PTSD
, and I know that it hits otherpeople in far more severe ways,
and that's why I think, witheverything I've got all my
injuries, everything that I feelI know there are people who
have it worse than me.
I know there are people who aregoing through the struggle in a
(11:49):
bigger way.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
In this book you also
talk about the importance of
community and support and, mostparticularly, family.
You know your wife, Alicia, isa hero of this story as well.
Could you talk about how thatwas, in terms of how she dealt
with your six to seven months inthe US recovering and she's
managing the family back inEngland and has been such a
(12:13):
source of strength for you?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I couldn't have done thiswithout the most incredible wife
.
I had three daughters.
We have four now.
We've had one who she's sevenmonths old, but you know, my
wife stood up when she needed tostand up and not a single time
did she say, oh, how are wegoing to handle this?
What are we going to do?
She said we will do whateverwe've got to do.
(12:35):
You get better, you stay inhospital.
And I was in hospital for sevenodd months and she said however
long you got to be there, thatis fine, I will take care of the
kids.
You do what you were doing.
Come back to me.
But it became pretty hard when Igot home.
You know, I thought that therecovery was in hospital.
I thought that when I got home,life would begin again and we
could start.
(12:55):
Well, that wasn't true.
In fact, when you leavehospital where you are
surrounded by doctors and nursesand physios each and every day,
when you take those away andyou suddenly have to figure out
how you can move, how you canget around your community, even
in the house with stairs, youknow, bathrooms that aren't
accessible, there are so manyother hurdles Again, that's one
(13:19):
of the reasons I also wanted towrite the book.
You know these journeys, they goon for life and at every step I
had to find a way to sort ofget through them.
But Alicia was there for me andshe continued to be there for
me, and there are moments athome where she has to do things
that I can no longer do Now.
(13:39):
They could be small things likecarrying anything big up and
downstairs, being able to reachhigh shelves, changing a light
bulb on a ladder.
You know these are things thatI can't do.
But there's one moment I writeabout in the book which was
really dramatic and I reallyrealized for the first time this
reversal of roles, and it wasthe middle of the night.
I'd been home a few months andthe dog started barking
downstairs and we knew someonewas breaking into the house and
(14:02):
I didn't have my legs on.
It still took me a while tofigure them out and Alicia was
pregnant at the time, so it musthave been about a year after we
got back or so.
But she ran downstairs.
My pregnant wife ran downstairsto protect the house and
screaming at them and shoutedand waved things and they ran
away.
But that moment meant such alot to me and actually it was
(14:24):
one of the parts that hurt somuch.
I was supposed to protect ourhouse.
I was the father, I was thehusband.
That's what I always did.
I would have done and I hadn'tthought about it before.
But to see my pregnant wifehaving to run downstairs to save
the family and the householdreally knocked me a bit and I'm
trying to get my legs on and Icome downstairs.
You know, a minute and a half,two minutes later which time she
(14:47):
scared them off.
I remember just thanking herfor it and saying I'm so sorry I
couldn't do that.
I'm so sorry that you're theone that had to come downstairs
and do that.
But Alicia is someone I youknow.
I mean you stand at the altarand you marry in sickness or in
health and she has never stoppedfor a second.
But it's her, it's thecommunity, it's people around
you.
And I talk also in the book justabout how people help family
(15:08):
help, friends help, doctors help, everyone helps.
And maybe you don't realizethat when you're not going
through something traumatic, butwow, do you realize it when you
do.
And that's a big lesson I'velearned is to constantly look
and reach out and help others.
Now when I see them needing itand you don't always know if
they do need it, you got to asksee if you can help Turn up if
someone is having a tough time.
(15:30):
Just ask if what you can do ithelps.
Even if they don't tell youthey need it, maybe they do, and
so that's part about being acommunity.
I think it's so important.
It makes us stronger, makes usgreat.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
That's a great
message that we don't realize
that most of us, because wedon't have the circumstances you
had to deal with, that we'rebeing helped all the time, every
day, from you know that baristawho gets up at 6 am to be at
the Starbucks to give us ourcoffee, to all the people around
us, friends, family andstrangers.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I tell you what's
been fascinating on the back of
that is and I never expectedthis something that is really
positive.
Because of my injuries and theprosthetic legs, people come up
to me all the time and sharethings with me which I wasn't
expecting.
People, you know, at schoolpickup people come up and want
to tell me about somethingdifficult they've gone through.
Somehow.
(16:19):
By seeing my injuries, theyfeel that they can open up and
talk to me, and I'm a journalist.
I've been trying my wholecareer to get people to open up
to me and like people are doingthat and I thought what a great
gift that is.
People just have this inherentsense that they know you've gone
through something difficult andthey are willing to share what
they've gone through as well,and I've just found that to be
great to be able to talk topeople.
(16:40):
It's fascinating to see howthat's happened Could
Fascinating to see how that'shappened.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Could I just ask you
to quickly comment as well about
faith, because you do talkabout how you went to school at
a monastery, growing up and wereraised with a Catholic faith,
but what role, if any, thatplayed in this process.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, look, I've had
a real journey with faith my
whole life as well.
I'm very strict Catholic.
Growing up, you know, I was ata Benedictine monastery in the
Yorkshire Moors.
And then, I suppose, when I wasat a Benedictine monastery in
the Yorkshire Moors, and then, Isuppose when I was at
university, I started to.
You know, I wasn't sure howmuch I believed in sort of the
established religion and Ialways believed in religion.
I've always believed in God,but whether I was still Catholic
or not or whether I just had myown beliefs.
(17:17):
And then so many times during mycareer I came across some
stories and I write about beingin Iraq after ISIS took over the
northwest of Iraq and Iremember going to this one
church that they'd blown up andI remember walking.
I had to track this littleminefield that they'd laid and
someone had planted the priesthad planted this path back to
this demolished church.
I remember walking into itagain and seeing everything
(17:39):
demolished but the altar andthis crucifix that had somehow
stayed up, and I just kepthaving these moments where I was
suddenly brought back to thisreal faith.
But this happened all the waythrough till I was injured in
Ukraine when I was lying thereduring those 40 minutes brutal
40 minutes that I was lyingthere and maybe I felt no pain.
Adrenaline had kicked in andyou are just thinking about how
(18:01):
you can save yourself.
I just, first of all I said howam I going to get home to my
family?
What have I got to do?
I will do anything.
And then the next thing Ithought of was God.
I said God, please, god, willyou get me home?
And there it is All thequestions I'd had of faith in my
(18:21):
life when everything else wastaken away.
I went to my family and I wentto God and that began the
rebuilding of my faith.
And even afterwards, I wastreated for seven months at the
Brook Army Medical Center inTexas, in San Antonio, this
incredible military hospital inSan Antonio, this incredible
military hospital.
But once I was let out of theICU, after the first six, eight
(18:43):
weeks or so, I passed the chapeland it took a good few weeks
and I wasn't ready to go intothe chapel and I don't know why.
I had so many questions aboutlife and death and what had
happened to me and was I readyto talk to God about it?
And then, finally and all,because there was a long line at
the lunch hall next door.
I said I'm going to pop in andagain, sitting there opened it
(19:06):
back up to me again and justagain these things started
happening.
That brought it back to me and,more than anything, I went in
on that first occasion and Iprayed and I spoke to Pierre and
Sasha, the two of my colleagueswho died with me, and I spoke
to a pastor as well and I writeabout talking to him in the book
and one of my first questionsto him was because he'd spoken
to dozens of people injured likeI've been injured in
(19:28):
Afghanistan, iraq, otherveterans, and I said why would
God have allowed this?
Why would God have allowed me tobe injured in this way?
And, I think, anyone who's gonethrough something traumatic.
I asked the same about naturaldisasters, for example.
You know, why would God send atsunami towards an island, kill
thousands of people?
And you have these questionsand I remember the pastor just
(19:50):
saying that God will always belooking for the good and the bad
.
I know I had this optimism thewhole time, but I also.
It was one lesson.
I said, yeah, I can stop and Ican think about the bad, or I
can stop and I can focus on thegood.
I can stop and make sure thateverything I do is focused on
helping other people who havegone through something similar
to me or something traumatic,not to question it so much, but
just to keep living and keepdoing it for God.
(20:13):
And so now again back to beingreligious again.
But you know, it's never toolate.
I say to everyone, even if it'snever too late, I say to
everyone, even if it's just aprayer, you don't have to go to
church, you don't start off byjust saying a prayer for a
minute in the morning.
Little bits, that piece thatreally helps and that you know.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
It's remarkable, that
comes with the title of the
book Resolute and the resilienceyou have all along the way,
from when the missiles hit towhere you are today.
You've approached things withsuch a great attitude of
(20:51):
resilience, of treating thesethings as opportunities to
overcome.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I think you have to.
Everything you know.
You've got to set yourselfgoals, you've got to know what
you're fighting for, you setyourself challenges, and that's
helped me a huge amount.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Well, let me just ask
you in our time that remains
about three trips you've takenyour return to Ukraine, your
visit to Israel and coming toNew York to receive our Ken
Tomlinson Award for Courage inJournalism.
So you returned to Ukraine some6, some 631 days, was it, after
the attack.
Could you just briefly talkabout that as something you
(21:25):
write about in the book?
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Big, big moment for
me and I wanted to go back
straight away.
Like a lot of the book is aboutnever hide from bad things that
happen.
Never pretend they didn'thappen.
Face up to them, talk aboutthem, stand up.
You know, if you get knockedoff the horse, you get back on
it.
And I knew I wanted to go backto Ukraine.
I had to go back for a fewreasons.
First of all, personally, Ineeded to show that I wouldn't
(21:48):
be stopped.
You can hold us down, but Iwill keep moving forward.
I also wanted to go back forjournalism.
I honestly felt that the way Isaw it is that Putin and the
Russians tried to silencejournalists that day.
We were targeted that day and Iknow that he wanted to silence
journalists and I wanted to goback to say you may have
(22:09):
attacked us, you may have triedto silence us, but I am back and
I am still reporting.
You will not stop journalists.
We will always report, nomatter the threat, because I
think that's so important.
And so I went back andinterviewed Zelensky and I sat
with him for a journalists.
We will always report, nomatter the threat, because I
think that's so important.
And so I went back andinterviewed Zelensky and I sat
with him for a good hour and itwas just fascinating to be back
and I felt fine, as if I'd comefull circle.
(22:30):
I was back reporting, doingsomething I loved.
But the train that I took intoUkraine was the same train that
I took out when I was so badlyinjured and on the way out I had
no pain meds.
It was a brutal, brutal 10hours where I had to learn a new
me.
I mean, it was tough and Iwrite about it in the book, how
you have to overcome that levelof pain.
(22:52):
And I took the same train,night train, back in and I lay
down in the same place along thesame kind of bench that I was
laid in on the way out, and Irelived it.
I wanted to go back, I wanted toremember what it was like, and
I still try to remember what itwas like because I don't want to
forget it.
I remember that moment, Iremember what happened, because
(23:13):
I think you have to, as I saidjust before, I think you have to
remember when these thingshappen, you know, don't run from
them.
So I want relive it.
It was for those reasons that Iwanted to go back to Ukraine
and I just felt that it wasreally important to do so.
And who knows, I might be goingback at some point again in the
future, hopefully when the waris over.
But it was an important journeyfor me to do, and personal as
well as professional.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
And I should mention
you were awarded the Order of
Merit Third Class from PresidentZelensky in Ukraine for your
work in covering the war there.
Before I ask you about yourvisit to Israel, could you
comment on the war?
You know you've invested a lotin covering it and I find it
incredible.
Now we have troops from NorthKorea fighting on the frontiers
of Europe and Russian forcesstill trying to conquer Ukraine,
(23:56):
and they've put up a toughfight.
But what are your thoughts onwhere we are right now, if any?
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Everything at the
moment hinges around whether or
not there will be a peace dealthat President Trump can make
both sides agree to.
At the moment, it seems toweigh heavily in Russia's favor,
but I don't know if theRussians really want to sign a
deal to be, honest.
The way I see it is that ifUkraine signed a peace deal,
even if the US isn't there, Ibelieve the Europeans will make
sure that Ukraine becomes, asthey've been calling it, like a
porcupine state.
(24:24):
You know it will arm itself up.
It will have.
Let's say, putin would waitthree years till the next
president came in, or till hetried again.
That it would be a lot harderfor him to do so at that point.
He is winning at the moment.
You know he's doing well.
I don't know if it was a benefitfor him right now to stop.
I think it is more of a benefitfor him to try and make the
(24:45):
President Trump.
As he's been saying, we'regoing to pull out If we don't
get a peace deal.
We'll just won't do anything,and I think maybe that's the
direction Russia would rather go, so that actually there is no
peace deal and Russia continuesfighting.
I don't know how that willhappen, but I think that we need
to be helping Ukraine in everypossible way.
I think certainly the Europeanshave to.
This is on their land border.
(25:06):
This is really the ones thatneed to be doing a bit more.
The other thing is that Russiahas set up a war economy.
Everything in the country isgeared towards providing weapons
and funding for the military.
You can't turn that off.
If they sign a peace deal, thatdoesn't stop, that's many years
to undo.
That's how they've gearedeverything up, including their
(25:26):
future generations.
Their children are in schoolholding guns and being told
they've got to learn to attackthe West, and so, however it is,
I feel that Russia is going tobe a threat for many years to
come, because that's how they'veset it up, and I don't think
they want to stop right now.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
You write in your
book about a visit to Israel and
meeting with some of theIsraelis who were taken hostage.
Could you touch on?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
that.
I remember October 7thhappening.
I wasn't traveling at thatpoint because of my injuries,
but I remember the first thing Iwanted to do was I wanted to
get out there and cover it.
And I covered so much of theMiddle East and my first
opportunity I could I managed toget out there to interview.
I went down to all thekibbutzes and I was telling the
stories and I interviewed thisincredible girl and she had been
(26:10):
held by Hamas in the hostagesin the tunnels under Gaza.
She was injured like I'd beeninjured, one leg almost gone,
damaged in the other leg, and Iremember sitting opposite her
and talking to her about it andit was the first time that I
realized what an impact myinjuries had had on my
journalism, my whole career.
(26:31):
I kind of hoped and believed andwanted to think that I had kind
of understood the stories thatpeople were telling me when
they'd gone through thesedifficult moments.
But I didn't Until it happenedto me.
I didn't understand what itmeant to go through something
traumatic and when I sat downand I spoke to her and we talked
for a long time, I understoodfor the first time as a
(26:54):
journalist what maybe she'd beengoing through and I realized
that my whole time as ajournalist I've been doing
everything I could.
I'd been reporting what theywere telling me, but I actually
kind of got it and it wasfascinating.
Listen to her Maya Rajev and Isat and spoke to her and she's
another incredible person who'sgone through it all and she's
out the other side and she'sdoing amazingly well.
But it was a real eye openerfor me, that journey and again,
(27:17):
another tragic story you knowthat's still not over.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Hostages are still
being held.
It's terrible to watch KennethTomlinson Award for Courage in
Journalism.
I think no one deserved thataward as much as you that we're
proud to give out each year.
And if you're in New York thisNovember 11th, we'll be having
our dinner again.
We'd love to have you join usfor this year's dinner, but I
hope that was a meaningful eventfor you and your journey, and
(27:55):
we were pleased to provideeveryone at that dinner a copy
of your book Saved as well.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah, you know, it
really was.
And I went through a littlemoment and I write about it in
the book as well where at onepoint I thought do I want to be
given awards just because I wasinjured?
Should it be for my work?
And I have since decided that,yes, you should, because if it
gives me the ability to stand upand encourage other journalists
, if it gives me the ability tostand up and to talk about how
(28:20):
important journalism is warcorrespondence in my case then
yes, and I now want to takeevery opportunity I have to talk
about the work that mycolleagues do, the people I know
do, because it is so importantand I now know what people and
colleagues and journalists gothrough to get these stories.
And so getting that award is agreat honor for me and it gave
me an ability to stand up and totalk about why it was important
(28:40):
for me, why I believe firmly injournalism and it really is.
That's why I'm so grateful thatyou're doing it and you can't
tell us who's going to win thisyear, can you yet?
Speaker 1 (28:49):
No, I can't yet, but.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I didn't think so.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
We did just select
our next class of Joseph Rago
fellows and we're in the processof selecting our Robert Novak
Journalism Fellows.
So that's why it was importantto us is to have you talk to
these young people that aregoing into journalism and
present the courage that ittakes for people like you and
others to do the kind ofreporting you do.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
It's more important
than it ever was as well,
because you know we talk all thetime about AI and social media
and the impact they're having onjournalism.
So that's why, more than ever,you need to know the journalist.
You need to know that there'ssomeone there speaking to the
sources, seeing what's happenedwith their own eyes.
If you take that away and yourely on anything else, it's not
(29:32):
real journalism, and we're soclouded by this kind of fake
journalism at the moment thatgive me a journalist who's done
it, who's been there.
Those are the only people Iwill read about and follow and
trust, and that's why theseyoung people that you're helping
educate they are the mostimportant.
They really are.
They're the future ofjournalism.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, that's exactly
our emphasis, for even for
journalists who end up onopinion pages, they need to do
reporting.
People don't just want to heartheir opinion about something,
they want to learn something newin the column they read.
And so get out there and doreporting, talk to people and
then reflect that in yourwriting.
Well, one message that comesacross in the book Resolute is
how much you've come to valuetime, and it's important for
(30:13):
everyone to put a premium ontime, and I know you have your
wife Alicia, your children Hero,Honor, Iris and Sage, probably
looking forward to spending theevening with you tonight.
So I'm going to bring this to aclose.
I'm so grateful to you,Benjamin Hall, for joining us
today on the Liberty andLeadership Podcast.
I could talk with you foranother hour, but thank you so
(30:34):
much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah, it would be my
pleasure to do so, but, roger,
it's so nice to see you italways is and thank you for
everything you do as well.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Thank you for
listening to the Liberty and
Leadership podcast.
If you have a comment orquestion, please drop us an
email at podcast at TFASorg, andbe sure to subscribe to the
show on your favorite podcastapp and leave a five-star review
.
Liberty and Leadership isproduced at Podville Media.
I'm your host, roger Ream, anduntil next time, show courage in
(31:06):
things, large and small.