Dateline: Classroom
Pir Zubair Shah, a Pakistani journalist who shared the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, is a Nieman Fellow at Harvard this year. He has a Green Card in his pocket, has a master’s degree in foreign policy, and speaks seven languages, including Pashto, Punjabi, and Urmari, the language of his tribal boyhood. When Shah was a reporter for The New York Times, more than half of his stories appeared on the front page. And today (Dec. 15) is his 34th birthday. Life is good. But things could have turned out differently. In 2007, while reporting for Newsday, Shah set out for a village in his homeland of South Waziristan, the mountainous region in northwest Pakistan famed for its volatility. (It borders Afghanistan and harbors its own Taliban fighters.) Before reaching the village, he got a warning: Turn back. Shah drove away, but then saw someone emerge from the darkness, a bearded man...