Monday, Oct. 28, the Roy R. Charles Center hosted a community talk with Defense News reporter Noah Robertson ’19 at Blow Memorial Hall. As a Sharp Journalism Seminar alum and former member of The Flat Hat, Robertson returned to share details about his journalism career covering national defense.
Robertson opened his presentation with a firsthand account from a Ukrainian city devastated by the Russian military. Visiting in 2022, he witnessed the aftermath of a town turned frontline, offering the audience a rare glimpse into his work in global conflict zones.
Robertson touched on similar stories throughout his talk. Whether going overseas to Ukraine or conversing with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Robertson underscored the importance of full immersion in his reporting. He also shared his experience tagging along on helicopter rides, sitting in on Pentagon press conferences and covering the Tokyo Olympics.
Robertson explained that despite the riveting nature of his reporting, working at the Pentagon can be much more mundane than overdramatized Hollywood portrayals let on. Robertson showed photos of his office space, highlighting the relatability of personal desk memorabilia, printed office memes and the food court with a Starbucks and Popeyes.
“It’s not very exciting,” Robertson said.
In that same vein, Robertson shared what the head of the Pentagon Press said to new employees on their first day.
“Welcome to the Pentagon, it’s disappointing,” he said.
However, Robertson’s journey to becoming a Pentagon reporter was far from mundane.
He credited the College for equipping him with connections that made his journalism career possible, including a valuable mentor he met through the Sharp Journalism Seminar.
“The person who helped me get an internship at the Christian Science Monitor, that led me to spending four years there, actually teaches the Sharp Journalism Seminar,” Robertson said. “So without that seminar, I actually would have never been able to meet her, would never have been able to get the internship, and would have never gotten the slew of experiences that came from that.”
Robertson attained a plethora of writing skills as an undergraduate that he still uses today, preparing him to work in such a dynamic field.
“The thing I got most attached to was just trying to be deliberate with the words that I used. Who I can credit that to was a professor named Sharon Zuber, who taught my intro English capstone class. It was helpful learning from her not only to be very critical of the words that I use, but also to get to the point fairly clearly,” Robertson said.
In addition to English, his second major in government helped supplement him with policy knowledge that has proved useful on the job.
“I learned how to write when I was an English major, and learned about a lot of the stories that I think through when I’m writing now. It’s some fiction texts, some of those are nonfiction texts, but that was helpful for me. And with government, I learned a lot of policy nuances. And there’s no replacement for that, for being focused on Washington. So now I’m on the Pentagon beat rather than a general political writer or something like that,” he said.
Professor Emeritus of Government and International Relations Sue Peterson attended Robertson’s talk. After having him as a student, Peterson recognized his impressive abilities, much like other audience members she spoke with during the presentation.
“Noah was an excellent student,” Peterson said. “During the middle of the talk, the woman sitting next to me leaned over and asked, ‘Is this guy really 26 years old?’ And I said, ‘Oh no, he was like this when he was here. I mean he was always just super smart and articulate. So you knew he was kind of destined for great things.’”
Robertson then stressed changes to U.S. foreign policy. He explained that in past years, Americans used to rank foreign policy among their lowest priorities, but ever since conflict arose in places such as Ukraine, Lebanon and Gaza, overseas events became more of a dire concern for citizens and government.
Robertson then underscored the importance of voting as a civic responsibility and chance to make one’s voice heard.
“This is your opportunity to make your voice known,” Robertson said.
Despite the centrality of foreign policy in his reporting, Robertson emphasized how the stories he covers are ultimately about everyday people. He discussed the common practice of reporting on far-away people’s lives from the security of Washington D.C. newsrooms, which prioritize abstract policy over concrete human interaction.
“Part of it is access,” Robertson said. “When you’re reporting on a conflict, it’s much easier to report on that from the safety of Washington than it is to actually go to a place like Gaza or Ukraine. These are places that are removed from our day-to-day, and therefore very difficult to get to, so part of it is logistical. The second is our mentality reporting on this stuff. D.C. is an area where we’re close to the center of these decision-makers rather than the people who are impacted by the decisions being made.”
Robertson encouraged aspiring journalists to connect people and policy, leading to more full-bodied and fair reporting.
“I would urge you to think about them as connected,” Robertson said. “The people, the policy, the bridge between them and the way we are alive.”
Selah Watkins ’27 enjoyed Robertson’s focus on the importance of word choice in reporting to humanize real people’s struggles.
“I really liked how he talked about rhetoric and language, its use in journalism and how dehumanizing language is used to sort of talk about policies that reside especially in Washington, especially our current political system,” Watkins said.
Closing out his talk, Robertson referenced Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart,” discussing how the white commissioner reduces the Igbo warrior Okonkwo to a passing thought, dehumanizing him through generalization.
Robertson connected this to the historical erasure of minority voices within journalism, and the need for reporting that fairly represents their lived experiences.,
“This was the pressure that I talked about earlier when I was describing what it’s like to be a reporter who discusses national defense. You have to keep in mind, policy decisions are going to be difficult to allow you to get individual voices, the texture of real people into reporting, and yet at the same time, you can’t cut out the voices, like described here with Okonkwo. These are real people,” he said.
Robertson remarked that he was grateful that he ended up pursuing journalism, given the wide range of possibilities in his work.
“Journalism, in my opinion, is the best job out there,” Robertson said. “You can do things you never thought were possible.”
CORRECTION (11/09/2024): Article was updated to correct the spelling of the Sharp Journalism Seminar
