CPD Director on the Role of Journalism in Foreign Policy

CPD Director Philip Seib was cited in a Miller-McCune article, "India, China, and the Importance of Storytelling," which highlighted Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Katherine Boo's debut book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Seib discussed the powerful role that ordinary people may play in the foreign policy process through stories and narratives that are documented and shared by journalists, novelists, and other authors. “That kind of journalism is important, or should be important to policymakers, because it makes things real,” he noted. “It gives us faces and people to care about. Policymakers presumably have hearts. And even if they are not moved to action, books like Boo’s can galvanize the public, which in turn gives them a push to change course."

To read the full article, please click here.

For further discussion of the interplay between real-time media and diplomacy, please refer to Philip Seib’s forthcoming book, Real-Time Diplomacy: Politics and Power in the Social Media Era (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2012).