Charles M. Sennott ’84

UMass Amherst history alumnus Charlie Sennott ’84—one of the nation's most accomplished foreign correspondents gets around. The GroundTruth Project, which he founded and directs, produced an in-depth investigation of Afghanistan back when many news outlets had moved on to covering other conflicts. Today, all eyes have been on Afghanistan. And that’s why Sennott is this year’s Distinguished Leader, an award which honors a widely recognized individual advancing their field in transformational ways.

Foreverstan: Afghanistan and the Road to Ending America’s Longest War (2015) is a year-long project that showcases films, podcasts, written features, and photo essays. Illuminating both hardships and hope, it includes stunning photography by photojournalist Ben Brody ’12, revealing interviews, and evocative writing. Here Sennott describes the Qala-i-Jangi fortress: At the center of the fortress’s south courtyard, there is a Scotch pine tree that the Taliban used as a machine gun nest during the uprising. The tree is now dead, riddled with machine gun rounds and barren of all its leaves. Its gray, lifeless branches reached up like bony fingers to a stunningly beautiful blue sky on a gorgeous spring morning.

Sennott is also co-founder of GlobalPost, a nonprofit that provides original international reporting rooted in integrity, accuracy, independence, and powerful storytelling.

“People often ask me, ‘do you ever use your degree in history?’ And my answer is, ‘I use it every day,’” Sennott has been quoted as saying. “My major in history has been something I've continued to study throughout my life. . . . It's been a lifelong process of loving history and wanting to bring it into the work I do every day in the field as a journalist.” The GroundTruth Project trains correspondents and documentary filmmakers to tell stories about critical global issues—from violence to climate change to pandemics. The Project has trained over 120 journalists whose work is distributed by such outlets as PBS NewsHour, PRI’s The World, ABC News, and MSNBC.