Scroll down to view a recording of the Beal Lecture.

Ayesha Rascoe, National Public Radio's host of Weekend Edition Sunday, highlighted journalism’s role in giving a voice to the voiceless as the Beal Lecturer on Sept. 17.

 “I have leaned on Ms. Roscoe to help me interpret the news and understand the details of stories and politics as they emerge in our increasingly chaotic system. She's doing the magic of bringing major stories to life, not with video or screen tricks. This is radio, and Ms. Roscoe is a true master of that medium,” said Keith Moon, who coordinates the Beal Lecture series. Moon is the E. Carleton Granbery Teaching Chair and instructor in English, history, and Russian language.

Prior to her role as host, Rascoe covered three presidential administrations as a White House correspondent at NPR for 10 years. Her reporting included a number of high-profile foreign trips, including President Trump's 2019 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, and President Obama's final NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland in 2016.

Before joining NPR, Rascoe spent the first decade of her career at Reuters, rising from a news assistant to an energy reporter to eventually covering the White House. She covered some of the biggest energy and environmental stories of the past decade, including the 2010 BP oil spill and the U.S. response to the Fukushima nuclear crisis in 2011.

Rascoe is also the editor of HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience, a book of essays about the impact of historically Black colleges and universities. She is an alumnae of Howard University.

During her talk, she stressed the need for financial support for trustworthy media, the importance of reliable news sources and transparency, and effective interview preparation techniques while advocating for an unbiased approach to reporting.

“As a journalist, my job is never just to paint a rosy picture. It's to paint an accurate picture. And sometimes that picture will be messy and complicated,” she said.

“In Washington, D.C. I saw firsthand how journalism plays the indispensable role of informing the public of what their government is up to,” she continued. “We need to make sure that the news is accessible and understandable.”

During the Q&A session, one student asked how the American news media can depolarize itself moving forward. Rascoe emphasized the importance of local news outlets. “When I'm meeting with a local member station reporter, they know that community like the back of their hands. They know the people, and they know the places to go. It's their home,” she said. “I think that it gives a different feel to the reporting when you're not just dropping into a place, but this is a place that you know intimately.”

The Beal Lecture series was established in 1983 in honor of Thaddeus R. (Ted) Beal Jr. ’35 by his close friend, classmate, and former trustee John Shedd Reed ’35, P'73,'81, GP'85,'89,'05,'08,'12,'14,'18. Beal was the stepson of longtime and much-revered headmaster George van Santvoord, Class of 1908. Reed created the series because he believed that The Hotchkiss School community would benefit from exposure to visiting speakers addressing issues of national or global concern.