Washington Post’s The Age of Walls

The Washington Post did an incredible job with their interactive news story about borders with barriers across the globe.

The project takes the audience through a series of episodes that have one concentration and allows them to read, analyze maps, and watch videos all at once. The reason this project was so engaging was because of its organization and uniqueness. The videos they included every so often in the piece were short snippets that got straight to the point and were in black in white in order for them to have a specific effect on the audience.

I was moved by this project because here I am, living a comfortable life and I constantly forget that there are people like these refugees that can’t escape to a warm home like me. That’s what’s great about news stories like this, they remind you.

I’m ashamed however at the world in general. The fact that so many countries closed their doors to so many refugees makes me unsure of what to think. Is accepting refugees bad? What if that was us and the tables were turned? The situation in all is very complicated as the authors had mentioned at the end of the article. There’s no straight forward answer.

On one hand I think, these people don’t have food or shelter we must help them. But then I watch the next video in the news project and I see Austria’s struggle to control the population when so many refugees are let into the country- no questions asked. I think to myself, what would I do in a refugee and/or a president’s position? That’s a hard question to even think about.

Author: Aya Nasrallah

Aya is a freshman at the University of Michigan-Dearborn majoring in Behavioral and Biological Sciences on a pre-med track. She is a pediatrician in the making and has a long way to go to accomplish her goal. She enjoys spending time with family, watching movies, and learning about anything and everything. Stick with her on the journey! View all posts by Aya Nasrallah