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Kirsten Johnson

Biography

"The cost of silence: it breeds ignorance." That was Kirsten Johnson's conclusion after a teacher committed suicide and a best friend attempted it. Both were gay, and struggling with their sexuality. One had been physically attacked twice since "coming out," the other was severely depressed.

These events were critical in Kirsten's choice of journalism as a profession. She decided that if she didn't like the world around her, she was obligated to work her hardest to change it. And she would do it with words. She writes: "I wanted to reach people, to educate and inform them. I wanted to fight ignorance in whatever form I found it. Now, every time I speak out, I feel as though I'm one step closer to creating the reality I want to live in."

While those events solidified her choice, Kirsten was intrigued by journalism years before. As a child in an Air Force family, during the Gulf War, Kirsten heard her mother on the phone 18 hours a day, counseling the families of troops, while her father configured combat radios. That a conflict so many miles away was having this effect on her life made Kirsten realize that "the only line between my world and the whole world is the line of my own ignorance. I wanted to work to erase that line. I also wanted to bring the world . . . home to what I discovered was a frequently insular society."

Kirsten is drawn to feature and magazine journalism because she thinks it is the most effective way to tell the news. But she doesn't rule out broadcast journalism, which she believes is the most effective way to reach an audience in the U.S. She writes: "I hope to use the human story to bring the international world home to American audiences. I think it is vitally important for the American public to know what the world around them is doing and saying. We've seen the necessity of this with the tragedy of 9/11 and more recently with the actions regarding Iraq. I intend to make my career ensuring that we never again live in such ignorance."

Since coming to the University of Delaware, Kirsten has been a Writing Fellow and a teaching assistant, and staffed The Review and a literary theory magazine. But her most memorable experience was when she was accepted for an internship with CNN's Beijing bureau. This led to an unforgettable summer that would have a huge effect on her career goals.

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