Pulitzer Center speaker reflects on covering the world’s 'most vulnerable'

By Sophia Ortiz ’21

Investigative journalist and documentarian Emily Kassie, a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grantee, presented an Oct. 24 community lecture in the School of Communications, discussing her crisis reporting for major news networks such as The New York Times, NBC and the HuffPost.

Kassie serves as the director of visual projects at The Marshall Project, where her work focuses on human rights, corruption and violence reporting. During her on-campus lecture, she presented three of her recent works featuring the world’s “most vulnerable.”

“Understanding and reporting injustice, inequality and privilege keeps me going,” she said.

Before an overflow crowd in the McEwen screening room, Kassie scrolled through her multimedia project titled “The 21st Century Gold Rush,” which she co-reported with HuffPost colleague Malia Politzer. The two journalists delved into the economies monetarily benefiting from humanitarian crises in Niger, Turkey, Italy and Germany.

“When there are mass movements of people and mass suffering, these massive economies can come up and make a profit off of the most vulnerable,” Kassie said.

She also screened two investigative documentary pieces she produced separately for The New York Times and NBC.

“Sexual Assault Inside ICE Detention: 2 Survivors Tell Their Stories” follows sexual assault victims and perpetrators at an immigrant detention center in Texas. “Hunting for Addicts” spotlights victims of the opioid crisis in Florida and the dangers of the state’s substance abuse treatment industry.

“If we measure society by how we treat the most vulnerable among us, then I would say we are not doing so well and we need to be doing better,” said Kassie during a post-lecture Q&A session with audience members.

Kenn Gaither, associate dean in the School of Communications, commended Kassie because “her work sheds light on the darker places in society that otherwise might not be covered.”

According to Kassie, her motivation to work as a multimedia journalist and documentarian began in her youth. As an adolescent, she hosted community “movie nights for civil rights,” where she streamed films in her local movie theater about humanitarian crises across the world.

She said she “got the bug” for documentary filmmaking in order to fix injustices in the world.

Elon is one of the Pulitzer Center’s more than 30 Campus Consortium partners, an educational initiative that brings Pulitzer Center staff and journalists to Elon’s campus twice a year. With Elon’s membership in the consortium, students have the opportunity to work with the center on developing international reporting projects, which have been featured on the center’s website and can be disseminated through media partners.

As part of her campus visit, Kassie lectured in several communications classes and spoke with members of the student media.

The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.