Behind the Headlines: A Career in Journalism & National Security with Peter Bergen

About the Event:

Join us for an intimate career conversation with renowned journalist, author, and national security analyst Peter Bergen, exploring what it takes to build a career covering some of the world's most consequential national security challenges. Drawing on more than three decades of experience reporting on terrorism, war, intelligence, and U.S. foreign policy—including from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and other conflict-affected regions—Bergen will reflect on the experiences and decisions that shaped his career, from producing Osama bin Laden's first television interview with a Western audience to becoming one of the country's leading national security analysts. The conversation will offer students a candid look at careers in journalism and national security, the realities of reporting on sensitive and high-stakes issues, and how journalists navigate access, sources, risk, credibility, and rapidly changing global events. Students will also have the opportunity to ask questions and hear Bergen's advice for those interested in careers spanning journalism, international affairs, intelligence, research, and public policy.

From the Speaker's Bio:

Peter Bergen is a journalist, author, documentary producer, professor, and one of the country's leading experts on terrorism and national security. He serves as Vice President for Global Studies and Fellows and Director of the Future Security program at New America, Professor of Practice at Arizona State University, and CNN's national security analyst. He has testified before U.S. congressional committees 18 times on national security issues and has reported extensively from Afghanistan and Iraq, the drug wars in Colombia and Mexico, and on jihadist groups across the Middle East and South Asia. His journalism has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, TIME, and Vanity Fair.

Bergen is the author or editor of eleven books, including three New York Times bestsellers. His forthcoming book, All the Presidents' Wars: Twenty-Five Years of America's War on Terror, will be published in September 2026. His other works include The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden, Trump and His Generals, United States of Jihad, The Longest War, and Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden, from 9/11 to Abbottabad. Manhunt received the Overseas Press Club's Cornelius Ryan Award, and the HBO documentary based on the book, which Bergen executive produced, won the 2013 Emmy for best documentary.

Bergen's career has spanned print, television, podcasts, and documentary filmmaking. In 1997, while working as a producer for CNN, he produced Osama bin Laden's first television interview, during which bin Laden declared war against the United States to a Western audience. Bergen has since produced films and documentaries for CNN, HBO, National Geographic, Discovery, and Showtime, including Legion of Brothers, The Longest War, and Ghosts of Beirut. Earlier in his career, he received the Overseas Press Club's Edward R. Murrow Award for his work on CNN's Kingdom of Cocaine. His work brings together decades of frontline reporting, scholarship, and analysis of terrorism, intelligence, conflict, and U.S. national security policy.

Faculty Expert

Javed Ali

Associate Professor of Practice

Ali is a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council, with over 20 years of professional experience in national security and intelligence issues in Washington, D.C. He served in the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he also held senior positions on joint duty assignments at the National Intelligence Council, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the National Security Council.