Lynsey Addario
Ep. 35 — A war photographer confronts her own mortality as she bears witness to the world’s worst wars / Lynsey Addario, Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist. Renowned photojournalist and war photographer Lynsey Addario and three fellow journalists were documenting the Arab Spring uprising in Libya in March 2011 when the unthinkable happened at a hostile checkpoint. The journalists had lingered too long to complete their reporting on the front lines and were cornered and taken hostage by Col. Muammar Gaddafi's troops. They were repeatedly beaten, tied up, blindfolded and constantly threatened with execution before being released nearly a week later. It was hard enough to recover from the trauma of her violent kidnapping, the second in her 15-year career as a award winning war photographer. A month later, Addario learned that two other journalist friends had been killed in Libya, leading to a profound existential crisis about the life-threatening career she had chosen. Addario's soul searching led to her best-selling memoir, "It's What I do," in which the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, recounts the incredible risks she has taken covering every major conflict and humanitarian crisis of her generation, played out against the backdrop of the post-9/11 War on Terror. A regular contributor to The NewYorkTimes, National Geographic, and Time, Addario has reported and photographed from some of the world’s most dangerous hotspots including Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, South Sudan, Somalia, and Congo. Recently, Addario took on another difficult assignment documenting a very different kind of death that challenged her as a photojournalist in an entirely new way. I hope you enjoy this incredible story of courage, perseverance and sacrifice. Transcript Download the PDF Chitra: Renowned photo journalist and war photographer, Lynsey Addario and three fellow journalists were shooting the Arab spring uprising in Libya in March, 2011 when the unthinkable happened at a hostile checkpoint. Addario and her colleagues were released nearly a week later. It was hard enough to recover from the trauma of her violent kidnapping, but when a month later, Addario learned that two other journalists friends had been killed in Libya, her world fell apart. Chitra: Hello everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan and this is When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Good Story, an advisory firm helping technology startups find their narrative. My guest today is Lynsey Addario, the Pulitzer prize winning photo journalist, who for the past 15 years has covered every major conflict and humanitarian crisis of her generation. A regular contributor to the New York Times, National Geographic and Time magazine, Addario has reported and photographed from some of the most dangerous hotspots in the world, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, South Sudan, Somalia and Congo. Addario also is the author of the bestselling memoir, It's What I do, a powerful narrative about her coming of age as a photo journalist during the post 911 War on Terror. Lynsey, welcome to the podcast. Lynsey: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Chitra: Did you always want to be a photographer? Lynsey: No, actually I never wanted to be a photographer. For me, I started photographing as a hobby and it was something I did sort of as I was growing up, I taught myself, I bought books on how to photograph, but it was never really something I took seriously, I guess because I didn't have exposure to photojournalism. And so it wasn't until I graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in international relations and Italian that I moved abroad and I started really paying attention to photography as a form of journalism and storytelling. And that's really when I decided I wanted to become a photographer. Chitra: Your first camera was actually a gift from your dad. You were one of four sisters,