Instructor: Paul Shinkman, Senior Writer, National Security, for US News & World Report

Course Overview:

Endless campaigns in Afghanistan. Proxy conflicts in Ukraine. Insurgent networks worldwide.

As Leon Trotsky offered, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” Yet the nuances of modern battlefields are poorly understood by the general public. This short term course examines conflicts worldwide and the journalism skills necessary to cover them. Students will learn the skills necessary to understand and document the complex scope of modern wars, and the people who choose to fight them. Students will also get a better understanding of the practical nature of how the U.S. military and intelligence agencies operate, and how they have changed to adapt to multiple decades of constant war.

Students will get to hear directly from national security journalists of various backgrounds and media, operators who have fought in modern war zones and the professionals who help develop the policy that governs them – or doesn’t.

This course is highly interactive, and is designed to offer a “day in the life” of a national security journalist, from writing cleanly and efficiently on tight deadline, preparing for high-profile interviews, developing sensitive sources, understanding complex policy and how to operate in and around conflict zones. It will benefit anyone interested in journalism or national security, but also those who wish to learn effective writing techniques for any high-pressure professional setting.

There are no prerequisites for this course, other than an interest in what fuels conflicts worldwide, and how best to explain them to others.

Learning Goals:

• Write cleanly and efficiently in a high-pressure professional setting
• Interact with national security professionals regarding sensitive matters and to glean information from them effectively
• Operate in and around conflict zones, or at least learn the basic elements to do so
• Scrutinize the elements of America’s national security infrastructure and how they operate worldwide, including learning how to learn about them

Brief Bio of the Instructor:

Paul Shinkman a national security correspondent. He joined U.S. News & World Report in 2012 and has reported multiple times from conflict zones in Ukraine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, where he embedded with local and American forces. He has reported from around the globe, including from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the “front lines” of Russia’s influence and cyber campaign in Europe. He has interviewed and traveled with some of the Defense Department’s top officials and reported from U.S. military facilities throughout the U.S. and internationally. He regularly appears on other media outlets to discuss his work, including the BBC World Service, C-Span’s Washington Journal and local broadcast affiliates. He previously worked as a reporter and digital editor at WTOP News Radio, a CBS affiliate in Washington, and as a freelance reporter covering local D.C. crime and business.

He graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a degree in Political Science and French Language & Culture, with a particular focus on military and Islam studies. He was a Next Generation National Security Leaders fellow at the Center for a New American Security in 2014, and was selected in 2017 for the National War College media embed program.  He has received several journalism awards for his work, including the Society of Professional Journalists’ Dateline Award in 2021 for his series on the U.S. decision to kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. He is a journalist member of the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.