Alumni Journalists Discuss Complexities of Middle East Conflict

On January 8, award-winning journalists Jane Ferguson ’04 and David Ottaway ’57 headlined an all-School meeting to discuss the complexities of the current Middle East conflict. By sharing their unique experiences and informed perspectives concerning the ongoing war in Gaza, the two veteran Middle East correspondents provided students with a shared set of details about the region and history of the conflict. The talk was an important step in Lawrenceville’s continuing efforts to advance student understanding of complex issues that demand critical thinking as well as to help create a campus environment of compassion, understanding, and informed discussion.

Ottaway is a Middle East Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center. He worked 35 years for The Washington Post as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Africa, and Southern Europe and later as a national security and investigative reporter in Washington before retiring in 2006. Twice a Pulitzer Prize finalist, he has won numerous awards for his reporting in the U.S. and abroad. He received a B.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Ottaway was a Lawrenceville School trustee from 1998-2011 and currently serves as a trustee emeritus.

Ferguson is a Polk, Emmy, Peabody, Overseas Press Club of America, and DuPont award-winning foreign correspondent for PBS NewsHour, contributor to The New Yorker, and McGraw Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. She has over a decade of experience living and reporting in the Middle East and reporting from the Arab world, Africa, and South Asia. Ferguson attended Lawrenceville as a Northern Ireland Scholar and is a graduate of York University (U.K.). She was elected to the Lawrenceville School Board of Trustees in 2023.

By way of introduction, Ottaway gave a careful outline of the last century of the region’s history. Beginning with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, he cataloged both breakthroughs and disappointments in attempts to achieve long-lasting peace. Ferguson spoke about her experiences as a journalist living in and covering the region for nearly two decades, and about our common humanity.

Ottaway and Ferguson concluded their talk by responding to student questions, urging Lawrentians to become informed global citizens by researching the news from a variety of resources, including exploring outlets from around the world that present different perspectives. Longform journalism, rather than the more easily accessible 20-second video, for example, remains relevant and important in order to understand the complexity and nuance of the situation in the region.

Dean of Students Blake Eldridge explained that the School’s ongoing efforts to educate students on this issue is important because many Lawrentians aspire to be “change-makers and future leaders, and credible information and thoughtful engagement is the first step to becoming informed, ethical leaders.” Some students will “shape the future for the benefit of all and play a role in negotiating and resolving challenging domestic and global conflicts, and perhaps even securing lasting peace in the Middle East.”

Throughout the remainder of the academic year, Lawrenceville will present additional programming with leading experts to educate students about national and global issues, and the School’s annual Capstone Lecture Series will bring thought leaders to campus to discuss a host of historic and current events in anticipation of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

For additional information, contact Lisa M. Gillard H'17, director of public relations, at lgillard@lawrenceville.org.