Citation
Mr. President, I have the great honor of presenting Mr. Ari Shapiro, an award-winning journalist, a host of NPR’s flagship news program, All Things Considered, and a source of sharp-eyed truth at a time when clarity and courage are needed to deliver an honest narrative of America and beyond.
Mr. Shapiro, you have filed stories from above the Arctic Circle and aboard Air Force One, and you’ve covered wars in Iraq, Ukraine, and Israel. Your exceptional journalism has earned you three Edward R. Murrow awards: one for a global series that connected the dots between climate change, migration, and far-right political leaders; another for your reporting on the life and death of Breonna Taylor; and a third for your coverage of the Trump Administration’s asylum policies on the U.S.–Mexico border. As a White House correspondent during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, you notably covered the debates over surveillance, detention, and interrogation in the years after Sept. 11.
Throughout your career, you have been recognized not only for the stories you tell but for the fearlessness with which you tell them. You have taken us into darkened corners and hit the light switch, exposing flaws in how disability benefits are disbursed to injured American veterans, describing the failures of Louisiana’s detention system after Hurricane Katrina, and investigating the link between methamphetamine use and HIV transmission. The American Judges’ Association conferred on you its first-ever American Gavel Award for your reporting on the U.S. courts and the American justice system — reporting that has proven to be both important and prescient for our times. And in 2023, you were named Journalist of the Year by NLGJA, the association of LGBTQ+ journalists.
Outside of work, you somehow found time to pen a memoir, The Best Strangers in the World, which became an instant New York Times bestseller. Your voice, so familiar and welcome to the NPR audience, has also filled some of the world’s most storied venues, from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl, where you’ve displayed your talents as a gifted singer, and appeared with the band Pink Martini, with whom you’ve sung in multiple languages.
Mr. Shapiro, when All Things Considered comes on the air, we know you have a story to tell that will move us, provoke us, perhaps even change us. And we are listening.
Mr. President, on behalf of the trustees, faculty, students, and staff at Clark University, it gives me great pleasure to request that the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, be conferred upon Ari Shapiro.