Nicholas D. Kristof - Win A Trip With Nick Kristof Contest

Win A Trip With Nick Kristof Contest

In 2006, The New York Times launched the Win a Trip with Nick Kristof contest, offering a college student the opportunity to win a reporting trip to Africa with Kristof by submitting essays outlining what they intend to accomplish in such a trip. From among 3,800 students who submitted entries, Kristof chose Casey Parks of Jackson, Mississippi. In September 2006, Kristof and Parks traveled to Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, and the Central African Republic and reported on AIDS, poverty, and maternal mortality. During the trip, Kristof published his New York Times columns while Parks wrote about her observations in her blog.

The success of this partnership prompted the Times to hold the Second Annual Win A Trip with Nick Kristof contest in 2007. Leana Wen, a medical student at Washington University in St. Louis, and Will Okun, a teacher at Westside Alternative High School in Chicago, were the winners of the 2007 competition. During summer 2007, they traveled with Kristof to Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern Congo. Filmmaker Eric Daniel Metzgar joined Kristof, Wen and Okun on their trip. The resulting film, Reporter, premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and aired on HBO in February 2010. In reviewing the film, which was executive produced by Ben Affleck, Entertainment Weekly wrote: "In Reporter, he's a compelling figure, a cross between Mother Teresa and the James Woods character in Salvador, and what seals the intensity of his job is the danger." The Washington Post observed, "Ideally, hopes to teach his companions, who won a contest to travel with him, about the value of witnessing the world's atrocities and scintillating them into stories that will call on people to act. Which is what Kristof did with his work in Darfur, Sudan: He caused people -- from George Clooney on down -- to do whatever they can."

For the Third Win A Trip, Kristof chose University of South Carolina student Paul Bowers, and the two traveled in Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. The fourth Win a Trip journey took place in May 2010, with Mitch Smith, a Kansan student studying at University of Nebraska. Smith had never been outside the United States before. They traveled to Gabon, Republic of Congo, and Democratic Republic of Congo. For the Fifth Win A Trip, in 2011, Kristof took a medical student, Saumya Dave, and a teacher, Noreen Connolly, through Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Niger and Burkina Faso.