America Inside Out: National Geographic’s journey into America’s ever-changing social identity

On April 13, 2018, National Geographic hosted a PR event at NYIT to celebrate the launch of its latest socio-political docu-series, America Inside Out. At the premiere, Katie Couric presented her personal motivations leading her to reveal the new identity of American society.

In America Inside Out, Couric travels around the country to explore the factors shaping the most pivotal and confusing topics in American culture today. She tackles some of the most pressing issues in today's society head-on – from the march in Charlottesville to Anti-Muslim sentiment to the #MeToo movement.

Throughout the series, we hear from young female Muslim entrepreneurs in Brooklyn as well as America’s white working class. Couric appointed cultural icons as well as everyday Americans to help her look past politics and individual discomfort to understand the complicated truth about the complexities of religion, race and cultural norms, while bringing up the humanity beneath the surface.

“To be able to examine these issues deeply is a real privilege” Katie Couric said as she embarked in a nation-wide journey to encourage conversations with people figuring out their take on urging cultural issues, adding that “it’s been a tremendous amount of work but really gratifying to get out of my bubble and travel around the country."

The most inspiring part of the event was Katie Couric explaining her approach to selecting what story to tell, how to tackle it, and how to be as thoughtful as possible when it comes to defining the message that you want the audience to take away from each episode.

When it came to giving the audience a sneak peak of the TV show, with “The Muslim Next Door” she explained how fond she was of finding out what it’s like to be a Muslim in America.  She explained that what inspired her work was that “every day there’s a new story about this disparaging Islam or people who are Muslim but at the same time, a real renaissance of Muslims in pop culture," adding that she was “fascinated by this juxtaposition of negative rhetoric against Muslims and yet this grassroots movement of young Muslims embracing their faith.

As an international student I was exceptionally moved by this event. It gave me the opportunity to hear first-hand from the writer and star of a TV show what it takes to confront the daunting challenge of shaking up the status-quo by shaping the polarized public opinion in America with a narrative founded on revealing that, at the end of the day, American culture shapes us all.

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