Sarah Kendzior Wiki
Sarah Kendzior is an American based journalist and author. She has written for Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Marie Claire, and other outlets, is the author of The View From Flyover Country a collection of essays first published in Al Jazeera and a co-host of the Gaslit Nation podcast. She has frequently appeared on MSNBC on the AM Joy show hosted by Joy Reid.
Sarah Kendzior Biography
Sarah Kendzior attended Sarah Lawrence College. She obtained a Master’s degree in Eurasian Studies from Indiana University and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis. Kendzior began her master’s program in 2004, began her dissertation in 2006, and completed it in 2012. She speaks Russian, and she focuses on the study with former Soviet Union authoritarian states.
Kendzior’s dissertation was on how the Uzbekistan dictatorship employed the Internet to undermine public trust in and out of manipulating the media. In 2004, She returned to school for her master’s, this time attending Indiana University Bloomington, located in Bloomington, Indiana.
She used the large campus’s research facilities to study cultural politics, language, and affairs. For the two years that she studied at the university, she worked as a research assistant in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. In 2006, she graduated with her master’s in central Eurasian studies.
Sarah Kendzior Journalist
Sarah Kendzior after obtaining her bachelor’s degree, She began working for the New York Daily News as an online editor and writer. She worked there for about two years before returning to school. During her last year as a Ph.D. student, she also worked as a consultant for the Open Society Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping developing countries build stable democracies.
During that time, she also worked as an instructor for the university in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of International Studies. After her graduation, she began consulting once again, this time for Freedom House, an organization that studies and reports on the governments of both the United States and foreign countries. Sarah Kendzior has journalistic publications which have focused locally on Saint Louis. She has frequently appeared on MSNBC on the AM Joy show hosted by Joy Reid.
In 2017, The Irish Times asserted that Kendzior “has become a must-follow journalist.” Kendzior and Bill Kristol were the main speakers for the 7th annual Public Values Symposium held on 29 March 2019 at the University of Missouri–Saint Louis. The two speakers saw “eye-to-eye… on the importance of people speaking up for what they believe in the face of eroding societal norms.”
Kendzior was a featured speaker for the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s annual Ottawa J-Talk on 9 April 2019. Regarding her coverage Trump, Kendzior stated that she had “three advantages”: I transitioned into covering the presidential election in March 2016. I had three advantages in covering Donald Trump specifically as a candidate. First, I worked in New York tabloid media, so I knew exactly how he marketed himself.
Then, I studied dictatorships and authoritarian regimes the entire time I was doing my Ph.D. A lot of things that Trump was doing in his campaign reminded me of things I saw in Uzbekistan, Russia, and other authoritarian states around the world. Alarm bells started going off in my head. Third, I live in the center of the country, not in D.C. or New York. When they talk about how hard things are out here, that’s accurate. Arthur Levitt interviewed Kendzior about her book and career in a May 2019 podcast for Bloomberg News.
On a St. Louis radio station, she was described in April 2018 as having become “a media sensation in recent years,” and having attained a “relatively sudden national celebrity”. The Columbia Journalism Review reported that because of her writings and expertise on authoritarian states, “as the new president came into power and the specter of Russian interference in his victory triggered Mueller’s investigation, the limos started lining up” to drive Kendzior to interviews at television studios.
Sarah Kendzior Net worth
Sarah Kendzior earns her income from her businesses and other related organizations. She also earns her income from her work as a based journalist and author. She also earns her income from the Awards industry. She has an estimated net worth $ 7 million dollars.
Sarah Kendzior Book
Sarah Kendzior book, The View from Flyover Country, was listed as a New York Times bestseller in May 2018. On June 2017, speaking to an American Library Association conference, Hillary Clinton described herself as “riveted by… The View From Flyover Country, which turned out to be especially relevant in the midst of our current health-care debate.”
The New York Post described Kendzior’s The View as a “collection of essays from the talented Kendzior, who writes intelligently and with great empathy about problems faced by the Midwest.” The Buffalo News described Kendzior’s The View as “an astonishment and a challenge to the convention for all sorts of reasons,” noting that Kendzior had “roared to the fore” because of her prediction of the 2016 election results, a result of having studied foreign demagogues and understanding deteriorating conditions in the U.S.
The Green Bay Press-Gazette described The View as a collection of “honest essays [in which Kendzior has] addressed themes of poverty, the American Dream, gentrification, race, school costs, unpaid internships and the decline of malls. Some articles have an opinion feel to them, but most are packed with statistics related to the topic at hand.”
Kealey Boyd, reviewing in 2018 for Hyperallergic, stated that the essays in The Views which were originally published by Al Jazeera between 2012 and 2014, which is concerning since every essay could be released now and be just as relevant proving the stagnation of what Kendzior calls our “post-employment economy.” Kendzior points to a surging underemployment rate as professionals and laborers work multiple part-time or contractual jobs at poverty wages in place of full-time careers.
“Mistaking wealth for virtue is the cruelty of our time,” states Kendzior. When social stigma drapes over professional immobility and lost opportunities, bad luck is perceived as a bad character. Kendzior observes that Americans born approximately between the late 1970s and the late 1990s are often declared lazy and narcissistic despite enduring the worst economy since the Great Depression.
Kendzior’s sober observations of the formation of character labels and their impact echo work by Martha Gellhorn, a writer employed by the Roosevelt administration to record the human stories behind the government statistics during the Depression. Kendzior’s prose is sharp and consistent whether the essay is data-dense or an opinion piece. She maneuvers through big issues with a pace and clarity that makes unpalatable topics fascinating, and unfortunately, relatable. Omair Ahmad, reviewing Kendzior’s The View for The Wire (India), stated that
I have rarely come across writing that is as urgent and as beautifully expressed. Kendzior’s work has two distinctive qualities that make it stand out. The first is that she is writing from, and about, St Louis, Missouri – a city that was once a cultural hub but has seen part of the slow decline witnessed in other manufacturing cities of the US. The second is that she is a scholar of the Central Asian republics. To say that this is an unusual combination would be a radical understatement.
Too often scholars of undemocratic regimes leave their horror for the way that humans are treated at their borders, unable or unwilling to see the conditions that the less privileged among their fellow citizens face. Because both journalism and academia are elite professions in themselves – a point that Kendzior makes repeatedly, and with particular force, this distance from local reality is exaggerated even further. The ability to see both allows Kendzior to make some very interesting comparisons.
On Milwaukee Public Radio WUWM, Bonnie North and Lauren Sigfusson stated that Kendzior’s The View “takes no prisoners” and is “now a bestseller, but it was originally self-published because no traditional publisher wanted it. The book critiques labor exploitation, race relations, media bias and other aspects of America’s post-employment economy that gave rise to President Trump. She believes the United States’ refusal to deal with the repercussions of the 2008 recession ‘has come back to haunt us big time.'”
Sarah Kendzior Views on current events
In 2016, Kendzior wrote about similarities between Donald Trump and the authoritarian leaders she had studied, noting Trump’s affection and admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin before there was widespread public awareness of Russia’s interference in the US election.
Ten days after Trump was elected president, she wrote an article warning that “we’re heading into dark times,” and urging her fellow Americans to “write down what you value; what standards you hold for yourself and for others, your dreams for the future and your hopes for your children… the struggle of your ancestors and how the hardship they overcame shaped the person you are today. Because if you do not do it now, you may forget,” and also to “write a list of things you would never do.” She urged her readers to
most of all, never lose sight of who you are and what you value. If you find yourself doing something that feels questionable or wrong a few months or years from now, find that essay you wrote on who you are and read it. Ask if that version of yourself would have done the same thing. And if the answer is no? Don’t do it.
Kendzior described the 2018–19 U.S. government shutdown as “predictable, planned destruction,” stating that “people who call this ‘unimaginable’ ignore that the dangers were all spelled out”.
Kendzior has stated that “America has been in decline since before I was born,” and that “widespread corruption in individual crises like Watergate, like Iran Contra, like the 9/11 aftermath, the war in Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis were not countered at the time. We did not see repercussions and consequences for brazen criminality at the time.
If we had, we would be in a different place Belief in American exceptionalism is what got us here. Belief in institutionalism, in checks and balances as a fail-proof mode of democracy, got us here. Because checks and balances are only as good as those who uphold them.”
On May 4, 2019, she stated on MSNBC that the Republican Party is engaging in “total obstructionism that is aimed at making American citizens weaker, making them less likely to fight back… They want a one-party state, that is what the GOP seeks, and Trump wants to be an autocrat with that state behind him.”
Sarah Kendzior Publications Books
Kendzior, Sarah (2018). The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from Forgotten America (First Flatiron books ed.). New York: Flatiron Books. ISBN 9781250189998. OCLC 1033570307.
In addition to her journalistic publications, Kendzior has published research in the Journal of Communication and other scholarly journals:
Pearce, Katy E.; Kendzior, Sarah (April 2012). “Networked Authoritarianism and Social Media in Azerbaijan”. Journal of Communication. 62 (2): 283–298. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01633.x.
Kendzior, Sarah (August 2011). “Digital distrust: Uzbek cynicism and solidarity in the Internet Age”. American Ethnologist. 38 (3): 559–575. doi:10.1111/j.1548-1425.2011.01323.x.
Kendzior, Sarah (20 November 2018). “Redefining Religion: Uzbek Atheist Propaganda in Gorbachev-Era Uzbekistan”. Nationalities Papers. 34 (5): 533–548. doi:10.1080/00905990600952954
Sarah Kendzior Jared Kushner
Sarah Kendzior, an author and regular guest on MSNBC’s AM Joy, railed against President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner as a “massive national security risk” who should be indicted. An AM Joy panel Saturday discussed latest reporting that Trump ordered former chief of staff John Kelly to give Kushner a top secret clearance last year, despite protests from intelligence officials and a top White House lawyer.
Both Trump and his daughter Ivanka a White House adviser and Kushner’s wife denied on the record that the president had anything to do with their security clearances. “Basically, Trump has been grooming those two for a dynastic kleptocracy,” Kendzior claimed. “This is very common. This is something you see in autocracies, this is something you see in mafia states, where the leader will put his children or relatives into office in order to keep the corruption going, keep the money flowing, not get caught, override prosecution.”
“This is like the 12th time I’ve been on your show talking about Jared Kushner,” Kendzior continued, “and the fact that he lied on his clearance forms, that he’s done illicit dealings, that he’s giving away state secrets and that he’s a massive national security risk. And so is Ivanka Trump. The only way that we would be able to finally stop having this conversation on national TV is if he is indicted! That is is what needs to be done.
Because this problem is enormous. It’s going to persevere. Even if he is gone, he is carrying around this information, other people are carrying around classified information. They do not have loyalty to the country. They have debt. They have financial interests. They have personal interests.” “This problem needs to be handled now,” she said. “Just indict Jared Kushner! Indict Ivanka Trump and get this crime family out of the White House!”
Sarah Kendzior Impeachment
And, in an essay published on her Gaslit Nation website she and her partner Andrea Chalupa don’t mince words about the existential threat that not wielding the one weapon we have, through the hard work of many good folks in the resistance, been given the power to bring this criminal pretender masquerading as POTUS to trial and exposing his many felonies to the American people:
“It is critical that the stakes are made clear. Refusal to impeach sends the message that the situation cannot possibly be that dire it if were, the Democrats would move to impeach, right? This is the same disastrous miscalculation that gave us an unpunished cadre of criminals from Watergate, Iran-Contra, the War on Iraq, and the 2008 financial crisis criminals who are working with the White House right now!
This is not a comparative study; this is literally the same people committing crimes over and over without repercussions. We would not be dealing with this crisis if officials had acted with conscience and conviction earlier, and brought these criminal elites to justice.
Let us be clear: we do not think that, if the House impeaches Trump, the GOP-dominated Senate will convict. We also do not think that if the Senate, by some miracle, impeaches Trump, that he will leave. Trump has made it clear he will not leave office even if the will of the people demands it in an election, and even if the will of Congress demands it in impeachment. Trump is an aspiring autocrat, and the GOP is seeking a one-party state.
So what is the point of the House impeaching Trump? An informed public is a powerful public, and hearings are the best way of informing the people on what the White House has done. Autocrats and wannabe autocrats live by their brands, and a symbolic vote of impeachment by the House, sending the world message and the United States still stands for the rule of law, damages the Trump brand and leaves a mark on it that
Ivanka must carry with her as she continues to represent us abroad. The House must begin impeachment proceedings to help restore America’s standing in the world and because it is their constitutional duty. Impeachment sends a message about who we are as a country and what we will accept and abide. The rule of law demands action.
Refusing to take action is a normalizing atrocity. Lawlessness must be confronted regardless of the outcome, as a matter of principle and conscience. Fighting only the battles that you know you will win is a sure way of ensuring you lose; preemptive surrender, in a rapidly consolidating autocracy, is permanent surrender. The American people have suffered enough under Trump; they should not have to suffer due to Pelosi’s capitulation as well. We all deserve better than this.”
Sarah Kendzior New York times
St. Lewis-based author and journalist Sarah Kendzior came to campus on Apr. 25 to lecture and answer questions based on her experience as a journalist, authoritarian governments specialist, podcaster, widely-followed Twitter user and author of the book “The View from Flyover Country.” Her talk was funded through the Hosokawa endowment.
The Hosokawa endowment was established by David and Beverly Hosokawa in 2000, and provides annual funds for awards in student journalism and to bring a noted journalist to come speak on campus. Media Relations Strategist Gillian Frew, who works in the communications office, organized the awards dinner and speaker event this year.
“In the past, we’ve been lucky to host journalists from big-name traditional outlets like The New York Times and Washington Post, as well as from alternative weeklies. We’ve had editors, humor columnists, tech reporters and even a correspondent from the Weather Channel,” Frew said. “This year, I’m excited that our speaker is someone with a national profile and significant online following, who has a background in both journalism and academia.”
Kendzior first got into journalism in college. She spent three years post graduation with the New York Daily. She then went into academia to get her Ph.D. in anthropology before returning to journalism. She published her book “The View from Flyover: Dispatches from Forgotten America” as an e-book in 2015 before republishing it in print in 2018. It quickly became a New York Times Bestseller.
“I was not a typical journalist. I got a Ph.D. in Anthropology and I studied authoritarian states, I studied how countries become or stay dictatorships and unfortunately that proves relevant for our time,” Kendzior said. “So I’ve had an unfortunate kind of career boost from our current political circumstances.”
In her talk, Kendzior focused on the transition the media has gone through since she started in journalism and how current journalism contributes to politics. “As a college student I would get $1000 for one article, now they try to pay young journalists in exposure,” Kendzior said. “It’s a white-collar profession that pays blue collar wages. It’s exploitative, it’s exclusionary, it’s also very necessary.”
While Kendzior talked about the difficulties of staying in journalism because of low salaries combined with high expected levels of education, she also highlighted the importance of young people, particularly women and people of color, entering journalism careers. “If you look at political media in particular, like 80 percent of articles are written by men, mostly white men,” Kendzior said.
“We’re headed into an election cycle where women are running but not getting the kind of coverage they should.” The Hosokawa endowment tries to support student journalists who might enter these journalism careers. Part of the Hosokawa awards process includes professional journalists providing constructive feedback on all the students’ submissions. Director of Communications Gina Ohnstad used to organize the Hosokawa event.
This year, she was a member of the panel that read the student submissions and attended the dinner and lecture. “We think of the Hosokawa Awards as a combination of professional development and overall recognition and appreciation for Wire journalists and photojournalists,” Ohnstad said. “I very much enjoy reading the pieces that our student journalists are the proudest of, but the highlight is enjoying dinner withWire staffers and getting to know the students, their interests and the personalities behind the bylines!”
Sarah Kendzior Quotes
“When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who let people die, not those who struggle to live.”
“The surest way to keep a problem from being solved is to deny that problem exists. Telling people not to complain is a way of keeping social issues from being addressed. It trivializes the grievances of the vulnerable, making the burdened feel like burdens.
Telling people not to complain is an act of power, a way of asserting that one’s position is more important than another one’s pain. People who say “stop complaining” always have the right to stop listening. But those who complain have often been denied the right to speak.”
“In the American media, white people debate whether race matters, rich people debate whether poverty matters and men debate whether gender matters. People for whom these problems must matter for they structure the limitations of their lives are locked out of the discussion.”
“It is easy, when people feel frightened and abandoned, for a demagogue to exploit those feelings of despair for political gain. It is easy for that demagogue to translate fear into fanaticism, to shift extremism into the mainstream and market it under the guise of populism. By the time buyer’s remorse hits, a new and more brutal political culture has arisen. A gaslit nation becomes engulfed in flames.”
“I think right-wing populists hate the `liberal elite` more than economic elites because they’ve grabbed all the jobs where you get paid to do something that isn’t just for the money – the pursuit of art, or truth, or charity”, notes David Graeber, an anthropologist whose ideas helped shape the Occupy movement. “All they can do if they want to do something bigger than themselves and still get paid is join the army.”
“Mistaking wealth for virtue is the cruelty of our time. By treating poverty as inevitable for parts of the population, and giving impoverished workers no means to rise out of it, America deprives not only them but society as a whole. Talented and hardworking people are denied the ability to contribute, and society is denied the benefits of their gifts. Poverty is not a character flaw. Poverty is not emblematic of intelligence. Poverty is lost potential, unheard contributions, silenced voices.”
“You are not your job. But you are how you treat people. So what can you do? You can work your hardest and do your best. You can organize and push for collective change. You can hustle and scrounge and play the odds. But when you fall, know that millions are falling with you. Know that it is, to a large extent, out of your hands. And when you see someone else falling, reach out your hands to catch them. Originally”
“The surest way to keep a problem from being solved is to deny that problem exists. Telling people not to complain is a way of keeping social issues from being addressed. It trivializes the grievances of the vulnerable, making the burdened feel like burdens. Telling people not to complain is an act of power, a way of asserting that one’s position is more important than another one’s pain.”
“Paranoia is aggression masked as a defense. It was paranoia (and hubris, and greed) that caused the run-up to the Iraq War; it is paranoia that leads to thousands of innocent Muslims being profiled in New York; it is paranoia that led to Trayvon Martin being shot to death on the street. In Congress, paranoia is less a style than a sickness, employed less with flourish than with fear. Paranoia is the refusal to recognize others except as filtered through ourselves—and how do Americans see themselves? Afraid, afraid, afraid.”