ABSTRACT
The best journalists—the ones who are most curious about the world—understand how difficult it is to dig for answers to complex questions. Curiosity, says journalism educator Mindy McAdams, is essential to becoming a good journalist. Leon Dash, a Pulitzer Prize winner at The Washington Post, says his “insatiable curiosity” about people led him to in-depth exploration of such sensitive and emotional subjects as adolescent pregnancy and one family’s descent into poverty, crime and drug abuse. Sometimes Mary Bishop’s was curious about what was happening at a particular moment, but often her curiosity was about events in the past, why they had taken place, and what they meant for the present. Unfortunately, journalists today work in newsroom environments that do not always provide the time or the incentives necessary to satisfy our curiosity about what’s going on around us. For Roberts, curiosity and the willingness to dig for answers are the basis for the most important kind of journalism.
