Adam B. Ellick is a correspondent for The New York Times, as an “integrated journalist,” one who works simultaneously “in the field [to] write a newspaper story and at the same time create a video,” as he explained. His work has sent him to 73 countries. Adam has covered, through video and print, Hugo Chavez’s violent land reforms in Venezuela, investigated Russia’s anti-American youth groups, reported on the Arab Spring from Egypt and Bahrain, where he was detained by police; and documented the Taliban’s crackdown on female education in Swat Valley, Pakistan.

Adam is an alumnus of Wilmington Friends School, a member of the Class of ’95. During his time at Friends, Adam was involved with The Whittier Miscellany as a Photo Editor and a Columnist, getting into “a lot of trouble for writing a lot of critical stories that prompted a lot of follow up letters to the editor.” After graduating from Friends, Adam went on to study at Ithaca College, graduating in 1999 and becoming a newspaper and magazine journalist before joining The Times in 2006.

Adam’s work brought him to Pakistan in 2009, where he spent six months with grassroots educational activist Malala Yousafzai and her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, bringing her story to the world with his 2009 documentary, Class Dismissed. Malala was shot by the Taliban in 2012.

During Friends’ 2013 Homecoming, Adam was honored as the 2013 Young Alumnus of the Year. On Friday, Oct. 26, Adam sat down with The Whittier Miscellany to discuss his experiences at Friends, his career, and his thoughts on the importance of journalism:

Whittier: Do you have any lasting memories from your times at Friends? Favorite teachers? Favorite classes?

Adam: I think there are a few teachers who have stayed with me for the course of my life, and for different reasons… I remember being obsessively edited and coached in my writing skills by people like Kerry Brown, Nona Smolko, and Terry Maguire, who, at that time, oversaw the school paper. They were incredibly patient, and I think this is the place where I began to learn how to write–unfortunately, I’m still learning. There’s also Lynn Wentzell, who taught Spanish, and was one of the best teachers I’ve ever studied from. And of course Rick Reynolds was an inspiration on a level of learning internationally, because I think he was ahead of his time. He was dragging us to the Model UN when no one even knew what it was and talking about places like Bosnia and Sarajevo when most of us gave him blank stares.

Whittier: Were you involved with The Whittier Miscellany at Friends?

Adam: I was. In fact, I blame The Whittier for my career in journalism directly. As a freshman, I wrote my first story, I think, my first month during my freshman year, and basically got what I call a ‘disease’ or ‘infection’ of journalism [that has]  never stopped.

Whittier: So you said that you–sort of–freshman year was when you got the bite of journalism. When did you decide that pursuing an integrated journalism career was your interest?

Adam: I became a newspaper journalist and a magazine journalist, and I did that for about four or five years after university. And then I came across a really fascinating story idea when I was living in Indonesia, and thought it merited a documentary. So, I moved back to the states and tried to understand the documentary process, and it was during that time when the NYTimes was starting a video unit. And unfortunately I didn’t have the video skills to be hired at the level they were looking for, but I did have a lot of journalism experience, so they brought me in, and I got to learn on the job, which was kind of like paid grad school, and eventually developed the technical skills to complement the journalism skills. It’s really a process that has morphed and adapted, but been pretty linear. I mean that “bite” or “infection” has never even gone on vacation. [laughs]

Whittier: After getting that ‘bite’ of journalism freshman year, you went on to cover some interesting stories, such as the story of Malala Yousafzai. How did you discover her?

Adam: I was covering Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2008 and 2009, and when I moved to Pakistan, I learned that there were 50,000 schoolgirls who were going to lose their education in a week or two because the Taliban was threatening schools where girls are educated. To me, that sounded incredibly important and crucial to society and to democracy and to freedom on a personal level and on a societal level. So, through the help of local journalists, I reached out to Malala’s father, a school activist, and when I met him, he brought along his daughter, and they told me their personal story…[As a] foreign correspondent, I look for people whose lives tell broader stories–about towns, about cities, about countries, about ideas. Their story represented two things to me that spoke on a really broad level: one was that the father was about to lose his business because he owned the girls’ school, so there were economic consequences under this family’s roof. And of course Malala was going to lose her fifth-grade education, so there was the education at stake, and when you put those two things together, I realized very quickly that I’m in this foreign country that most Americans don’t understand, but I can explain to them this very foreign issue through the eyes, ears, and emotions of what we can all relate to, which is a family.

Whittier: And how did you know that Malala, in particular– did you think that she would grow up to be the “star” that she is today?

Adam: No, I had no idea– I mean, when I sat across from her the day I met her, she was eleven years old, and she was a very different person. I would describe her as shy and quiet and very deferential to her father. She never spoke unless she was spoken to, and she was– it’s an attribute that, sadly, is very common in Pakistani society, where, especially women, but even anyone who’s younger, is sort of deferential to their elders, especially your male elders. Anyone who watches my films will agree –that the family was exceptionally brave, and this was a time when women were banned from shopping in markets, when people were being beheaded in the main square, and the vast majority of people who lived in this town, which was decimated by brutality and terrorism, was silent– people were silent, they were afraid to speak up. And this family was the exception.

Whittier: When Malala started becoming more popular, transforming into the mouthpiece of Swat and girls education, do you think the media played a role in the Taliban’s pointed assault?

Adam: The basic narrative of what happened is after I left Pakistan, Malala became more emboldened. She started speaking out on Pakistani television against the Taliban. One of the things that has been lost, and the media has failed to convey to the public, is that Malala was not shot for going to school. She was shot for speaking out against them, and for vilifying them in public. She was on national TV saying the Taliban are inhuman, saying they aren’t even organisms, and calling them monsters and comparing them to insects. So they went after her. They weren’t going after her because she went to school. Now, they don’t approve of her going to a secular school. But I think that’s really important to keep in mind, and I think that in many ways the press and myself initially have failed to communicate the nuances of this story. It’s become a celebrity and a brand. She currently has five people working full time on her press through an international agency. So, the issue which drew me to her homeland was girls not being educated, and that’s part of the discussion today, and that’s a great thing. But, the personification of the issue has become larger than the issue. It’s still better than no one talking about it at all, though.

Whittier: Did you stay in contact with Malala?

Adam: We stayed in touch for a few years after [the documentary] was made. I received an email from her and her father after the shooting thanking me for giving her a voice in very difficult and dark days. That gave me a sense of comfort.

Whitter: Do you think that journalism has a moral responsibility to cover human rights atrocities?

Adam: We see ourselves as reporting on issues that the public needs to know about. We’re like the radars of awareness for what society needs to know. As technology proliferates around the world, you’re seeing civilians being able to do that as well. But a lot of atrocities are not so obvious, and sometimes they require professionals who are trained. Anyone can do it; it’s not like being a doctor, where you need a license and a degree, but people like us who know how to do it can usually do better and faster in certain situations. I’m really happy that in certain situations, civilians are able to practice some degree of journalism on their own. I see it as a complement to what we’re doing, but I don’t think it will supplant the field of journalism.

Whittier: How do you see the first amendment as important in more unstable regions?

Adam: There’s not a sweeping answer, because every government is really particular. I can tell you that a lot of the places that I’ve worked are trying to find a balance between freedom and responsibility. When the press becomes free, it raises issues of [whether] it [is] responsible. So it’s a balance, and I think people forget that we had a two hundred year head start. So it gets a little dangerous when we start wondering why other places aren’t like us. And, by the way, in my opinion we’re pretty infant as well. We’re still trying to find that sweet spot, too.

Whittier: What sorts of projects are you involved with currently? What are some interests that are driving your career right now?

Adam: I’m on a break from reporting stories right now. I’m on an innovation task force within The Times, which is an internal commission that’s looking at the future of news, and how The Times can try to change as fast as you guys who are moving way ahead of us in terms of how you consume news, what devices you read them on, and what news means to you. It’s a bit of a time out from reporting to figure out the industry, the challenge that’s in front of us.

Whittier: How do you see the industry as changing, with journalism moving towards more of a focus on mobile devices? What do you see as the main challenges of traditional media?

Adam: Everything we’ve done in the past has to be rethought. It doesn’t mean it has to be changed; it means we have to rethink everything. The reason is because approximately half of people who use The Times are consuming the paper on their phones. It’s not the olden days when people go The Times even online anymore. The curated platforms and social platforms are the way people share news now. No one seems to know what that means from a storytelling standpoint. The only way I know how to tell a story right now is to write a nine hundred-word story for The Times, because that’s what we do. So we need to rethink: what’s the purpose of a long-form story if no one wants to read for more than thirty seconds on their phones? How do you get them to read longer, or do you not? So different places are trying different things, but things are being revolutionized. I think users are changing faster than institutions, and that makes it very challenging. Anyone who tells you they know the answer is wrong. No one knows what to do. The counter answer to what I just said, is that nothing changes. We vet. We filter. We judge. We have a methodology that tells us what’s important, why it matters.

Adam’s articles and films, including his two documentaries on Malala Yousafzai, Class Dismissed and The Making of Malala, can be found at nytimes.com. Adam can be found on Twitter at @aellick.