CAMDEN — Nick Schifrin's workplace is often a war zone. He has covered wars in Ukraine, in Gaza, Syria, Afghanistan and more. He has been so close to the action that during one live report from Gaza, explosions muffled his words. At home, his mother was watching and she texted him, "You cannot go before I do."

Schifrin, PBS NewsHour's award-winning Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent, will share his experiences in An Evening with Nick Schifrin – Reporting on War in the 21st Century, Saturday, Aug. 24, at 7:30 p.m., at the Camden Opera House, sponsored by the Camden Conference in partnership with Maine Public.

Though war reporting can leave journalists disillusioned and cynical, one of Nick Schifrin's guiding qualities is empathy, which, he said, supplies the purpose that inspires him to continue his work. “We must not only voice empathy, but also figure out which questions to ask," Schifrin told an audience of university students last year. In Ukraine, he asked a grieving mother to "tell me about your son." Schifrin said he has often cried during interviews.

From 2008-2012, Schifrin served as the ABC News correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2011 he was one of the first journalists to arrive in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after Osama bin Laden’s death and delivered one of the year’s biggest exclusives – the first video from inside bin Laden’s compound. His reporting helped ABC News win an Edward R. Murrow award for its bin Laden coverage.

Prior to joining PBS NewsHour, Schifrin was Al Jazeera America's Middle East correspondent. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his Gaza coverage and a National Headliners Award for his Ukraine coverage. 

The PBS NewsHour series "Inside Putin's Russia," led by Schifrin, won a 2017 Peabody Award and the National Press Club's Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence. In November 2020, Schifrin received the American Academy of Diplomacy's Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs.

Schifrin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Overseas Press Club Foundation. He has a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a Master of International Public Policy degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

For tickets and information, visit CamdenConference.org.

The Camden Conference is a nonprofit, non-partisan volunteer-driven citizens' forum, whose mission is to foster informed discourse on world issues through year-round public engagement in community events and student education programs, culminating in an annual February weekend conference.