Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dr. Isaac Stanley-Becker spoke at Upper School assembly on Friday, November 7, 2025, as part of the A. J. Downs Writers at Work lecture series, introduced by Tickner Writing Fellow Johannes Lichtman. Stanley-Becker read from a story he wrote for The Atlantic, titled “Portland’s War Zone is Like Burning Man for the Terminally Online,” about his visit to Portland, Oregon, during the protest outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility.

After the reading, Stanley-Becker talked about how consumers of news can easily feel overwhelmed by the “noise” of so much information. “What journalism does, when it’s done right, is a way of turning that noise into something that you can actually understand and ideally connect with,” he said. The job of the journalist is to decipher “What’s really happening here? … Who’s telling the truth?”

He spoke about how being on the scene in Portland allowed him to figure out more nuanced details as the event unfolded. “I tried to make that legible for people far away, for people who might be confused by it,” he said. “That’s what journalism is able to do: to hold up that mirror and make things clear and understandable when there is just an overwhelming amount of information.”

The guest speaker also emphasized the importance of listening to diverse voices and how journalism is a form of civic work. “The whole point is giving people enough solid information that they can make up their own minds about things and not just what people in power want them to think.”

His final point engaged the audience directly: “Journalism needs you. … It needs readers, subscribers, and practitioners.” Is Stanley-Becker concerned that AI might come for his job? Not really. “AI can never replace what good journalists do. AI can’t discover anything new, it can’t figure out or reveal information that people want to keep hidden. And that’s what the best journalism does.”

Following the assembly, interested students enjoyed further conversation with the journalist in the Gilman Room.

Watch the lecture

About Isaac Stanley-Becker

Isaac Stanley-Becker is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He has reported from across Europe and the United States, including as a national security and investigative reporter at The Washington Post. He was part of two Post teams that won the Pulitzer Prize, most recently in 2024 for a series on the role of the AR-15 in American life. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Oxford and is the author of “Europe without Borders: A History.”