By Ray Skala
CCC Journalism Program
BLACKWOOD – Washington Post national security correspondent Joby Warrick, who spoke as part of a lecture series in April at Camden County College, said his job focuses on covering government agencies responsible for protecting the country.
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Joby Warrick signs books during a recent visit to Camden County College. By Ray Skala, CCC Journalism Program
“I tend to work on a variety of different issues, depending on what’s prominent at the time. Most of my work these days is related to counterterrorism and weapons proliferation,” Warrick said in an email interview on April 16.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer spoke about ISIS at Camden County College on April 11 as part of a community lecture series called Terror in the Twenty First Century – Al Qaeda, ISIS and Their Affiliates. He also signed copies of his book, “Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS.”
Warrick joined The Washington Post’s national staff in 1996. Before that, he covered the fall of communism in Eastern Europe as a UPI correspondent and worked as a reporter at the Delaware County (Pa.) Daily Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C.
He won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction for “Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS” and the 1996 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for public service for co-writing a series of investigative stories in the News & Observer about the political and environmental fallout caused by factory farming in the Southeast.
Being a national security correspondent “simply means that I’m part of a team of reporters who cover national security issues at The Washington Post,” Warrick said. “Structurally, The Post divides the reporting staff into subject areas, so that there are specialized reporters who cover the White House and politics, the courts, science and health, etc.”
Warrick said speaking to the audience at Camden County College had similarities to working as a journalist.
“You can tell when you look out at an audience if people are engaged or not and you can see eye contact and people nodding their heads and looking like they really cared and wanted to hear more about this,” he said in an interview after his speech. “That’s what I was inspired to do by my day job is to try to inform people and you can see that happening and it’s special.”
