Ann Curry

Recently journalist Ann Curry was the first Western journalist to interview the new president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, an important achievement due to the historically tense relations between Iran and the West.  Most likely Rouhani picked Curry because she is known to be a fair journalist and has had a long, well-publicized career in American journalism.  His trust in her, a trust he showed to her even before our own president, illustrates something key that can only be found in journalism.  As journalists, we have the power to be mediators.  To be the unbiased intermediary that gets both sides of the story in order to create a verified, understandable version of events that strives for truth.  While Curry obviously has allegiances to the United States, she interviewed Rouhani in a fair and leveled manner, giving him the opportunity to answer for some of the wrongs of his predecessor (or at least those of us in the West would consider them as such).  It would have been easy to get in an argument with such a man for saying that he is "not a historian" when asked if he believes the Holocaust didn't happen.  However, Curry is there not to argue or to get angry at the man but to be an observer, someone who brings back the important information we as citizens need to know in order to understand the world around us.  And that is why now more than ever we need accurate, unbiased journalists in such a globalized world.