DePauw alum Robert Sherman ‘18 is currently on the ground in Tel Aviv, Israel, reporting for NewsNation. However, his story began in Greencastle, Indiana, where he graduated in 2018 with a major in communications and minor in economics. After his graduation, he went into local news.
“I started at the CBS affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama, and I was there for about a year and a half, which I enjoyed. You have to learn a lot of those rudimentary skills somewhere: the art of interviewing, the art of asking questions. It sounds simple, but it’s really one of those things where you just have to do it. There’s not a book that teaches you that stuff,” Sherman said.
From Alabama, Sherman went over to Fox News for two years to travel around the country. His work involved on the ground video coverage of a lot of big stories. Then, Sherman described, an opportunity opened up at NewsNation. Quickly, Sherman fell in love with the concept of the network–trying to remove the noise.
“We hear the complaints loud and clear from around the country that people want to know what’s going on. People want to know the facts. People want to know more about a story without hearing all of this opinion and nonsense,” Sherman said.
Working at NewsNation since Jan. 2022, Sherman has been grateful to be at the forefront of most major story development, spending a month covering the war in Ukraine last year. He also was among one of the first reporters on the ground to cover the Uvalde school shooting, as well as Hurricane Ian.
“My main bread and butter has historically been covering campaigns and elections, so I was used a lot for the Georgia race, Arizona race, Pennsylvania race, Texas governor’s race last year, and, already this year, we’ve been crisscrossing the country a lot for the presidential race,” Sherman said.
Sherman found himself in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Oct. 8 this year following an attack on Israel by Hamas, booking a flight to the conflict mid-vacation in London. “When news breaks,” Sherman said, “you have to be ready to go.” He says that his reporting now in Israel is significantly different than just covering campaigns.
He says Tel Aviv best reminds him of Miami Beach, with beautiful palm trees, the Mediterranean, and high-rise buildings. When he visited the city a few months ago, Sherman described the city as lively and energetic.
“The energy has been sucked out of this place. Every day we have at least once been in a bomb shelter as missile strikes coming from the Gaza Strip are very common here. We are still about forty miles away from Gaza Strip itself, but the missiles still come up this way,” Sherman said.
Sherman explained that on yesterday, Oct. 18, he had to run to the shelter two or three times. He stressed how hard it is to explain the situation in Israel. While people are still seen on the beach and on the streets trying to live normal lives, he feels an incessant worry lingering in the air.
“Most every restaurant [is] shut down, few are open here. A lot of shops are closed. Most people are trying to establish some sense of normalcy, but when your country is in a war zone, that's obviously not easy,” Sherman said.
Sherman says that there is always something happening on the ground in Israel. With visits from foreign leaders to other developments in the region, Sherman’s job is to bring these developments to the public eye. Since NewsNation is a 24-hour news station, Sherman always has to be ready to go every hour with the latest development. Between the reporting, Sherman tries to catch interviews and put up updates on his social media.
“This is one of those things in which it feels like every detail is critical in this story. You are really talking about lives at stake, and every detail is consequential. You have to be buttoned up and get every story right. For Americans sitting at home, it may be a conflict playing out thousands of miles away, but for people here it is real everyday life or death situations through this whole area, not just Israel but Palestine as well,” Sherman said.
Just recently, Sherman was reporting on the death of a couple of people in southern Israel. Sherman said that there are about 200 hostages missing right now, two of which were just found on Wednesday (Oct. 18) by the Israel Defense Forces. He had a chance to interview with the extended family telling stories of what the abduction was like.
“The family members are hiding in these bomb shelters then Hamas comes in and uses gas grenades to gas them out and then abducts them. The family has no idea where they are for a few days. You hear the voices of these people here talking about the last time they heard their loved one’s voices as they screamed to be let go and pleaded for their life,” Sherman said.
Sherman says that news reporting can get caught up in the numbers – the number of tanks, fighter jets, soldiers, bombs dropped. He says that behind this story are millions of lives that have been forever changed and behind that number are many individual people.
“At Tel Aviv University, they now have this exhibit of an empty auditorium with someone’s face sitting on each of the seats with each face representing someone that has been killed, [is] missing, or [is] a hostage. That starts to put into perspective how many lives here have been forever impacted. Every one of those faces has a mom, dad, brother, sister, and friends. It’s hard to find someone totally untouched by this. Everyone is feeling it in some capacity. That’s the thing that stood out to me the most,” Sherman said.
Sherman says that the future of Israel and surrounding regions are all up to time and that the future relies upon the upcoming days in the conflict. When talking with people on the ground, Sherman says the most common fear among Israelis is that the worst is yet to come. He described the Middle East as a “powder keg” right now. The big concern, Sherman says, is how the next few days could play a critical role in defining the region for the next few years or decades.
When Sherman got back from Ukraine last year, he told his friends that we are all one day away from waking up to a completely different world. He truly believes that this is even more true watching the conflict unfold now in the Middle East.
“There is a possibility that this will impact all of us. I’m sure there are people on DePauw’s campus who have connections to Israel. You should hear their pain. I’m sure there are people at DePauw’s campus who have connections to Palestine. You should hear their pain,” Sherman said.
Sherman’s advice to DePauw students is to really try to seek to understand what’s happening over in Israel, due to its complexity. He emphasized that the conflict is an issue that has been going on for decades, and he believes that it stands to reason that it will continue on for decades as well.
“I think it is incumbent upon us to understand what's happening here, the root of the issues, and why do both sides feel so committed to the situation at hand in order to try and understand all of this. I think it's one of those situations where it’s easy to not care about what's going on around the world, but I feel as if that time is up and it’s time for all of us to focus up,” Sherman said.