The 2025 Peter Stursberg Foreign Correspondents Lecture will be delivered at Carleton University on Nov. 13 by Sky News Africa Correspondent Yousra Elbagir, who will focus on coverage of Sudan.
The award-winning Sudanese-British broadcast journalist and writer titles her lecture: “Human reporting from Sudan and beyond — a remedy for selective empathy?”
The lecture is being held at 7 p.m. in the Atrium of Carleton University’s Richcraft Hall, home to Carleton’s journalism program. Admission is free, but those who wish to attend are asked to register in advance.
“As journalists, we aren’t just tasked with presenting facts and figures but should be making the world a smaller place,” Elbagir says. “Through reporting on my country’s revolution and ignored war, I have learnt that human reporting is a powerful tool to foster compassion in an increasingly divided world. I have taken this with me wherever I report and will share it through anecdotes and some valuable hard-earned lessons.”
Elbagir is currently the Sky News Africa correspondent covering major events and stories across the continent, from natural disasters to civil unrest and conflict. Most notably, her reports from the frontline of Sudan’s war have uncovered the scale of devastation in the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis. But she’s also provided exclusive live coverage that captured the fall of Eastern Congo’s regional capital Goma to M23. Elbagir has previously reported for Channel 4 News, the Financial Times and was an international correspondent for Vice News on HBO.
Legendary CBC war correspondent Peter Stursberg.
Since its launch in 2017, the annual Peter Stursberg lecture, named in honour of the legendary Second World War correspondent, has explored the work of foreign correspondents and their coverage of conflict.
The lecture will be moderated by former foreign correspondent Nahlah Ayed, now host of the daily CBC Radio program Ideas and a long-time partner with Carleton in airing the Stursberg lectures.
In addition to her lecture on the evening of Nov. 13, Elbagir will also conduct a workshop earlier in the day with Carleton journalism students on trauma-informed reporting.
The annual Stursberg lecture, now in its ninth year, was created in honour of legendary Canadian war correspondent Peter Stursberg, who pioneered radio coverage of the Second World War for the CBC. Notably, Stursberg and other war correspondents of that era, spoke of the societal pressures they faced and a sense that they were expected to support the war effort through their reporting.
Judith Lawrie and Richard Stursberg endowed the annual Stursberg lecture in honour of their father.
Stursberg passed away at the age of 101 in 2014, and his children Judith Lawrie and Richard Stursberg endowed the annual talk in his honour. The Stursberg lecture is one of two initiatives created by the family within Carleton’s journalism program to honour their father. The other is the Peter Stursberg Award in Conflict Journalism and Media Studies. This award was intended to help a student in Carleton’s Master of Journalism program complete a thesis or journalism project on a subject related to human conflict, the media and conflict studies, or conflict resolution, reconciliation or reconstruction.
Over the years, the Stursberg lecture has featured some incredible correspondents: Lyse Doucet (BBC), Janine de Giovanni, Adrienne Arsenault (CBC), Larry Madowo (then at BBC), Nima Elbagir (CNN), Giancarlo Fiorella (senior researcher, Bellingcat), Veronika Melkozerova (Politico), Shrouq Al Aila (Ain Media) and Gideon Levy (Haaretz).
Yousra Elbagir’s lecture promises to uphold the tradition of Carleton’s Stursberg lecture series.
Friday, October 17, 2025 in General, Journalism News, News
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