Usha Sahay: Understanding Media for More Impact on Policy

Usha Sahay is a Belfer International and Global Affairs Student Fellow

During the Obama presidency, then-undergraduate Usha Sahay began reading about the role of the U.S. in two conflicts that dominated the news:  the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her interest was sparked in both journalism and international affairs; today she is a Harvard Kennedy School student and Belfer International and Global Affairs Student Fellow interested in U.S. leadership and decision-making in foreign affairs and the role of the media in how policy is crafted.

Sahay, who has worked for The Wall Street Journal and HuffPost, began her media career at War on the Rocks, a digital national security and foreign policy publication where she was Managing Editor before coming to Harvard and remains Editor-at-Large. She sees the platform as a way to connect policymakers, scholars, and the media in discourse about foreign policy and international relations. 

“I kind of always had in the back of my head that I wanted to take those [journalism] skills and go back to the world of national security,” Sahay said. She remains invested in the role of the media in shaping the national security debate. 

“I realized the importance of being someone who really understood the media environment and the journalistic process in a granular way but also had a deep understanding of policy issues,” Sahay said. “One of the reasons I was excited to come to the Kennedy School was that there are a lot of fantastic resources on the journalism side here and it is a great place to deepen your understanding of national security issues.”

Sahay is currently working on a podcast that will examine the history of nuclear weapons, with the goal of exploring unanswered puzzles and recurring historical themes. In addition, she is assisting Harvard Kennedy School Professor and historian Fredrik Logevall with research for his upcoming two-volume biography of JFK. 

Working with Prof. Logevall is “a really great opportunity to learn from someone at the top of their field and get an understanding of the nitty gritty of how a book gets researched and edited,” Sahay said.