Covering 9/11: How the attacks shaped our world today

It's been 20 years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the world we live in is still shaped in many ways by the events of that day. Join the Ford School and Wallace House for a special retrospective on 9/11 with journalists Beth Fertig of WNYC and Nancy Youssef of the Wall Street Journal. Beth and Nancy covered the attacks and their aftermath, as well as the U.S. response at home and abroad. Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House, will moderate the conversation. This event is co-sponsored by Wallace House.

From the speakers' bios

Beth Fertig is a senior reporter at WNYC. She is currently covering New York City’s economic recovery from the pandemic. Since starting her career at WNYC in 1995, she has reported on immigration, public education, 9/11, and city politics. Beth has won many local and national awards, including the prestigious Alfred I. duPont Columbia University Award for Broadcast Journalism for her series of reports in 2001 about an effort to privatize some struggling city schools. She won a regional Edward R. Murrow Award and a Gracie Award for her coverage on family separation and changes in asylum law. The New York Press Club gave her a special award after the 2001 terrorist attacks for a profile on the friendship of two WTC survivors. Beth is a New York City native who discovered her love for journalism at The Michigan Daily, her college newspaper at the University of Michigan. She also has a Master’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. She is a frequent contributor to National Public Radio. Nancy Youssef is a national security correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. She was previously the Senior National Security Correspondent for Buzzfeed News. She also worked at The Daily Beast, and before that McClatchy Newspapers, where she served as National Security Correspondent and Middle East Bureau Chief based in Cairo, as well as chief Pentagon correspondent. She is the founder of the Pentagon Press Association. Before covering the Pentagon, she spent four years covering the Iraq war, including a stint as Baghdad bureau chief. Her pieces focused on the everyday Iraqi experience, civilian casualties and how the U.S.'s military strategy was reshaping Iraq's social and political dynamics. Prior to her work in Washington, she was a reporter for the Detroit Free Press and the Baltimore Sun. Nancy has won several awards for her work, including the University of Virginia's Lawrence Hall Award for Distinguished Journalism covering the Middle East, the Maryland-D.C. Delaware Press Association and the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. A Washington, D.C.-area native, she earned a bachelor's degree in Economics from University of Virginia and master’s degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Her parents are from Egypt, and she has been visiting the region all of her life. She speaks Arabic. Lynette Clemetson is the Charles R. Eisendrath Director of Wallace House, home of the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists at the University of Michigan. She is a Knight-Wallace alum and came to the university from National Public Radio where she was Senior Director of Strategy and Content Initiatives, guiding projects across broadcast, digital and events. Lynette spent several years as a magazine and newspaper reporter before moving into media strategy and leadership. In addition to her work as a domestic correspondent for The New York Times and Newsweek magazine, she was also an Asia correspondent for Newsweek based in Hong Kong. A former Director of Content Strategy at Pew Center on the States, she was also founding managing editor of the website TheRoot.com. Lynette has a passionate interest in sustaining journalism in a variety of forms and supporting journalists in the pursuit of their craft.