Montana Journalism Review

Volume 1 Issue 40 Issue 40, 2011 Article 1

2011

Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

University of Montana--Missoula. School of Journalism

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This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Montana Journalism Review by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting MONTANA M JOURNALISM RJ REVIEW

BEYOND OUR BORDERS The future of foreign reporting

The University of Montana School of Journalism  Vol. 40, Summer 2011 Published by ScholarWorks at University of Montana, 2015 1 Montana Journalism Review, Vol. 1 [2015], Iss. 40, Art. 1

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EDITOR’S NOTE

In tribute to American photo- freelancing for Getty Images, and to two an unforgettable series detailing the journalist Chris Hondros, 41, who other extraordinary photojournalists, shooting of an Iraqi family by U.S. died in Misrata, Libya, on April 20 both British citizens, who ventured to troops. Hetherington was a creative after being struck by shrapnel from a the back of the cave. Only one of them genius straining at the bounds of still rocket-propelled grenade, South African returned. Freelancer Tim Hetherington, photography. Two months earlier he photojournalist Nic Bothma wrote on 41, was mortally wounded in the same attended the Academy Awards as a the Committee to Protect Journalists’ attack in Libya that killed Hondros. nominated director of the Afghanistan website: “It is said that photographers Giles Duley, 39, lost three limbs to war documentary “Restrepo.” are the ones that go to the back of a cave an explosive device on Feb. 7, while Duley, who started out as a fashion with a torch and return to tell the rest embedded with the U.S. Army in photographer, followed his heart to of the tribe what is there. If not for your Afghanistan. humanitarian photography for Doctors bravery, your willingness to venture All three were at the top of their Without Borders and the United Nations to the depths of these caves, and your game. All had, as one commenter to and had been widely published. relentless pursuit of the truth and reality the New York Times’ Lens blog said, Hondo and Hetherington were of war, so many would never see its “the eye of an artist, the responsibility among 16 journalists killed so far in wretched face. In bringing these images of a journalist, and the raw courage of 2011, 12 in their home countries, 10 in to the minds of people around the an infantryman.” Hondros was a 2004 North Africa and the Middle East. All world you made a difference, expanded Pulitzer Prize finalist for “his powerful gave their lives to illustrate, as one man awareness, and brought about change.” and courageous coverage of the bloody on Duley’s blog said, “the unity, tragedy The staff of Montana Journalism upheaval in Liberia” and won the 2005 and potential of the human condition.” Review 2011 dedicates this issue on Robert Capa Gold Medal from the We at MJR stand in awe of their foreign reporting to Hondros, who was Overseas Press Club of America for courage and sacrifice. –Clem Work

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features

4 Freelancing: the bottom line by Karen J. Coates 8 In Cairo by Andrew Burton 11 Mehrdad Kia on foreign reporting by Lindsey Galipeau 12 Advantages of being a female foreign correspondent by Gwen Florio 15 The risks of being a female foreign correspondent by Ann Fleischli 16 Embedded reporting: asset or liability? by Daniel West 20 A drowning rice bowl by Kevin Radley 22 The world of Al-Jazeera English by Roman Stubbs 24 Anonymous in Burma by Timothy Chase 27 Risky business by Neil Livingstone

Cover photo by Andrew Burton

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features

30 From quarterbacks to quakes by Dave Kindred 31 Against the wall: reporting on China by Kathy McLaughlin 33 Lessons on foreign reporting: Marcus Brauchli by Joe Pavlish 35 Pack your bags and go by Henriette LÖwisch 36 Beyond conflict: reporting in occupied Palestine by Brendan Work 39 The Pearl Projectby Colette Maddock 41 Practicing journalism in a smaller, riskier world by Frank Smyth 43 Revolutions and citizen journalism by Mark Fonseca Rendeiro 48 Kill switches threaten Internet, foreign reporting by Garrett Browne Inside back cover Table of contents for more articles online

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4 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 6 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting | BY KAREN J. COATES | PHOTOS BY JERRY REDFERN |

Freelancing: the bottom line Americans don’t like to talk money, but we journalists must

I’m writing this story for so-called church-state wall has been one of travel budgets. And freelancers often of 20th-century pro journalism’s cardinal look more toward grants, foundations free. I want to get that out of flaws.” and nongovernmental organizations the way, right up front, because Normally this time of year, my (NGOs) to pay their way. When all those the bottom line these days is the photojournalist husband, Jerry Redfern fail, they quit or go commercial. (also a UM grad), and I are sweating “Today, how we divide our time top anxiety for any freelance our way through an Asian jungle, trying and do our work and get paid for it has journalist. to dredge up stories for anyone who virtually no connection to how things wants them. I am lucky to take a hiatus worked for those who started out a mericans don’t like to talk this year, on a well-paid Scripps Fellow- decade or two before us,” freelance money, but we journalists must. ship in Environmental Journalism at photographer Justin Mott writes for It’s not that we’re cheap, greedy the University of Colorado. The other Nieman Reports. He moved to Hanoi orA pernicious. We need to eat. And we’re day, as I worked on campus, I overheard in 2007 with dreams of flying high on a slogging through a complete overhaul a conversation between two students newspaper’s dime. He snatched a few of of this industry as we know it: dying discussing fundraising ideas for a couple those gigs, shooting for The New York papers (35,000 layoffs since 2007), dead of start-up projects they and their peers Times across Asia in 2008. “By the next magazines (428 lost in 2009; including had in mind. I had a major “duh” mo- year news organizations’ budgets dried my former employer, Gourmet) and ment. I realized, clearly, how much I had up; no longer was I traveling for the blogs that ask our time and words for missed in college by missing business Times or anyone else.” nothing but exposure. Freelancers can’t entirely. He hasn’t resigned, but he’s branched afford to write for free—unless personal Let’s say you’re graduating from into bread-and-butter commercial interests compel us to tell a story that J-School soon and you want to write photography that funds the long-term must be told. from foreign lands. Everyone wants to journalistic projects he really wants to After all, that is what drives most of tie a scarf around the head, hail a tuk- do. “It was time to readjust my plans as a us into this business. But it is a business. tuk and breeze through the choked-up photographer and to market myself as a And the trouble is, most of us J-School streets of someplace exotic, right? I’ve business.” grads got here learning how to interview, done it for a dozen years, and I think The one business concept I did report the news, check our facts and anyone who wants to start doing it—and learn at an early age was “don’t put all decide between further and farther— keep doing it successfully—must begin your eggs in one basket.” For several with not a whit of business know-how to with a few key questions: years, Jerry and I survived on semi- back us up. regular checks from a few dependable, The traditional “separation of church How do I get paid? traditional sources (Gourmet at the and state” between the news side and top of that list.) But take a look at the the advertising side is responsible for It’s the toughest, most pivotal diversity in a sampling of our 2010 much of this knowledge hole, writes Dan question whose answer often drives pay stubs: Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Gillmore in his new book, “Mediactive.” freelancers away. When Jerry and I Sierra, GlobalPost, Women’s eNews, Reporters traditionally were shunned first moved to Cambodia in 1998, I Lonely Planet, Random House, National from the ad offices “as if they’d get a worked on staff for the English-language Geographic Books, OnAsia Images, terminal disease” by crossing over. “But Cambodia Daily and he shot freelance a couple of Thai travel magazines, an a journalist who has no idea how his for papers and agencies that flew in international media training group, the industry really works from a business reporters to cover big news. That rarely University of Colorado, the Fund for perspective is missing way too much of happens anymore. Newsrooms (if they Investigative Journalism and the German the big picture,” Gillmore writes. “The still exist) contract locals in the absence government. 

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Some of those jobs I never would according to the State of the News develop platforms, tools and services have anticipated five years ago, nor Media annual report), a host of “media to inform and transform community would I have envisioned them as futurists” are pouring dollars into new news, conversations and information journalism outlets for my work. But ideas. Innovation is paramount. So is distribution and visualization.” We can today, it’s essential to think broadly and the drive to “consume, share, create, hate the language — but we need to creatively in deciding how and where to comment, search, report, investigate, learn it if we want money to do what we market yourself as a freelancer. When tweet, read, view, check in, bump,” so do best as freelance journalists. British photojournalists Jason Florio say the folks at We Media who have and Neville Elder decided to shoot a created the PitchIt! Challenge offering How do I tell the story? documentary for the 10th anniversary two projects $25,000 apiece to merge of the 9/11 attacks, they ran short of media, communication and technology. In the age of 140-character money for a promotional trailer. So they While traditional media outlets crumble, narratives, some say readers no longer launched a page on Kickstarter (the the organizers write, “a new generation have the eyes or minds for big blocks “largest funding platform for creative of empowered, entrepreneurial digital of text. “The long feature has largely projects in the world”) and asked the creatives exchanges information, insight disappeared,” journalist and professor public to meet their $1,500 goal. It’s and knowledge on an unprecedented Mark Lee Hunter told an audience at a called crowdsourcing. And it generated scale through global communications 2010 European conference on the future more money than the two journalists networks.” of journalism. had sought. If I’d written a sentence like that in I’m not sure I fully believe him, Dennis Swibold’s reporting class, he’d or maybe I don’t want to believe him What is my job? have kicked me out the door and all the because long features are what I enjoy way back home to Wisconsin. doing — and reading — most. Plus, Your job, as a foreign freelancer, is But these are people with money, I just listened to former New Yorker to create your job. Just as newspapers funding independent journalists. staffer and author Dan Baum speak at are closing bureaus and investing far PitchIt! isn’t alone. The Knight News length about the eternal power of good less in their newsrooms ($1.6 billion Challenge doles out $5 million a year storytelling with strong, true characters. less in 2010 than three years earlier, to people with “innovative ideas that I do believe that.

6 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 8 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

But I also realize long-form journalism alone cannot sustain us. Years ago, we freelancers built a clip file. Today, we build an audience. And we do that in ways that often feel antithetical to the very nature of what we love. We tweet. We blog. We post on Facebook and gather friends who “like” the pages we’ve established entirely for the business sides of our lives. Publishers wouldn’t even and Boulder. We’re talking with the think of giving us a nonfiction book deal Karen Coates is a freelance Asia Society about presenting in San without a ready-made core of readers. journalist and author whose Francisco. And we’re never closing an Here’s one example of my work for the last 15 years has eye to any creative means for getting the multifaceted plans of attack: story out. focused on Southeast Asia. Jerry and I are finishing a book on She will be the 2011 Pollner unexploded ordnance (UXO), which Why am I here? Professor at UM. continues to kill kids and farmers in Laos nearly 40 years after the U.S. Because the story needs to get out. military dropped the bombs. The book People need to read it, see it and know it. Jerry Redfern, an deal will pay, eventually. But not a lot. These days we have infinite possibilities internationally recognized We have published spinoff features in for that happening, though few of photojournalist, is married to newspapers and magazines that pay them fall into the scope of traditional Karen. as little as a few hundred dollars each, journalism. That doesn’t matter so much or nearly as much as the book itself. to me. It’s the story that counts and the I’ve written blog posts on UXO, and people who get it — not the means by then posted links on Facebook and which it happens. Twitter. Jerry has exhibited his photos If we can accept that, we have a shot in Santa Fe, Los Angeles, Phnom Penh at succeeding as freelancers. 

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IN CAIRO

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On February 1, 24-year-old freelance photographer Andrew Burton flew himself to Cairo to cover the Egyptian revolution in words and photographs.

hen the Egyptian revolu- Once on the ground in Cairo, I broadcasters so much time, though tion started on Jan. 25, I worked alongside a few friends and tried the Internet has become a wonderful watched closely – the Tu- to focus on giving voice to the people of platform to view larger groups of Wnisian protests had started and stopped the Egyptian revolution. We walked the images. Numerous world-class news fairly quickly, and I didn’t want to fly streets and spent a lot of time talking organizations now run photo-specific over only to have the events end while I to people and photographing events blogs, showing a wider variety of images. IN CAIRO was en route. However, by day five of the both big and little. Some events were Each day on the ground in Cairo protesting in Cairo, things seemed to be major, like the rioting and protests that was different — for two days there were in full swing, and I started emailing ev- broke out in Tahrir Square. Others were coordinated attacks on journalists. I ery editor I could think of, asking if they smaller, like how the entrance to the and many friends and colleagues were needed anyone working over there. Cairo subway station had been turned beaten badly and had camera gear In one conversation I had with an into a trash dump because people who smashed and stolen. Other days involved editor the person made it clear: While were camping out in the square needed medieval-style fighting between people my work was good, I had no serious in- to put their trash somewhere. And for and against Hosni Mubarak — ternational news experience, and I hadn’t while international newspapers and weapons involved rocks, slingshots and proven I could operate in a conflict zone. TV stations often only show the most catapults; protection included hard hats, I had heard similar stories from some graphic, violent or enticing shots, I know homemade shields and barricades of of my favorite photojournalists over the both my colleagues and myself made scrap metal. years — that they had self-funded their and transmitted many more photos than By the time Mubarak stepped down, first few trips until they had proven were shown. It’s a criticism people often the square had begun to feel like a state themselves. Immediately after that con- have of the news — to only show the fair — a local economy emerged of versation, I purchased my ticket and sent most sensational images. And I have to people selling blankets, water, roasted out another round of emails to editors say, I agree. Unfortunately, newspapers sweet potatoes, cigarettes and Coca- saying I would be flying out the next day. only have so much print space and Cola. Families were bringing their

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children, couples went on dates, and as I Hopefully, people who see my photos ask and overseas bureaus in print, radio and photographed one newborn, her parents themselves the same thing. TV. I will say this: The term parachute beamed shiny smiles at my camera, While in Cairo I was lucky enough journalist carries various negative con- and the mother said in perfect English, to end up getting hired by a wire service, notations with it, often suggesting that “This is a revolution, baby.” To work in but I didn’t know until I was on the the journalists exploit those who suffer that environment, I quickly learned that ground in Egypt. I was able to make the for their own stories. To this, I can only you must adapt each day, trust your gut, money back that I spent. I think, in total, speak from my own experiences, and I have eyes in the back of your head, smile I maybe made $300 on the trip (for a can say that the vast majority of pho- at people often and rely on talking to week of work). This is, by no means, a tographers and journalists I know are people. profession to get rich from. I know I am empathetic people who are passionate Personally, I find photojournal- one of many in my generation eager to about telling stories. We do our work to ism to be deeply satisfying work and work as a journalist and tell good stories. improve the world, act as a societal con- believe it benefits people in numerous However, I can say that I feel a deep science, shed light on evil things (like the

ways: People in front of the camera are conviction for my work and find great Egyptian government under Mubarak) given a voice to the world, a voice they satisfaction in knowing that in my own and lift up the good in the world. While don’t normally have. For viewers around small way, I am acting as a mirror for the journalism world is far from per- the globe, it teaches them about world society, even if I make no real money. fect, I believe the world is a better place events that they would otherwise not I received criticism for flying myself because of it. be exposed to, and it should make them to Cairo. I was called a “parachute At the end of the day, I am a firm question their beliefs and think critically journalist” — a reporter or photographer believer that photojournalism acts as about whether or not they agree with the who travels from hot spot to hot spot. I a force of good. It opens people’s eyes events going on and what action should have found that people who call others to social issues and communities they be taken. parachute journalists are often those sit- would otherwise not be conscious of, Finally, the work satisfies me person- ting at home, watching the events. Those and it makes people explore their own ally because it allows me to return to people would not even be able to see or beliefs. I believe that photographers those original questions I started to ask understand those events or grasp the act as historians. Through photogra- myself back in college about govern- magnitude of those situations without phy, visual records are created to act ments, economics, social movements those journalists on the ground. as references for future generations. I and the human condition. When I work In many places, like Egypt, the believe this improves the world — good in a mob, for instance, I ask myself, journalism industry is so small that the photographs can remind societies of our “Why are these people screaming at their foreign press is the only way of telling past mistakes and encourage us towards government? What has occurred that those stories in a truthful, thoughtful better decision-making.  would spawn such passion? Why is the way. Furthermore, the journalism indus- (Editor’s note: Andrew sent this from a government reacting the way they are? try has largely cannibalized itself over tiny airport in Japan, where he had flown What should be done to calm them?” the past decade, slashing budgets, jobs to cover the next big story.)

10 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 12 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting | BY LINDSEY GALIPEAU | Q&A Mehrdad Kia on foreign reporting

Dr. Mehrdad Kia is the Associate Provost for International Programs at The University of Montana. He teaches students about the Middle East and Central Asia and has strong opinions about reporting from the United States on those regions:

• There is a general sense of ignorance about other cultures and the complexities of these societies. • We tend to resort to very simple adjectives and oversimplify foreign news. • Iran is a country of about 73 million people with three thousand years of history. All of that becomes a square of only hundreds or maybe thousands when there is a gathering or protest. Mistakes: • Foreign journalists don’t learn the native languages. Learning the language could break down walls, bring understanding and even respect to the reporter and those they report on. • News creates “others” rather than looking at them as equally human with the same issues we are facing. • They were caught with fears about [Hosni] These wrong versions of news stories “dehumanize” Mubarak failing and the Muslim Brotherhood people. seizing power. What they did not know is that United States vs. Middle East: the Brotherhood supports democracy. Quality of foreign reporting: • The Islamic media is far worse than American media because it is government controlled and there is a very • The Internet has greatly helped in providing strict censorship mechanism. Being a journalist in audiences with correct news. We have many these types of countries is like being a “mouthpiece of a more options to look at. In this case, the more government.” the merrier, but we do need to watch out for • The government will spin the media to show their trash coming through the floodgates. attitude about the United States and will show only the • Despite budget cuts, print media is also best or worst news depending on their stance. increasingly doing a much better job. Coverage of Egypt’s uprising: • There also needs to be more in-depth coverage so these complex areas can be much better • Many United States reporters equated it with Tunisia, understood. and few voices in print reminded us that each country • Future journalists need to be serious, is very different. conscientious, committed and have courage. 

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| BY GWEN FLORIO | PHOTOS BY KARL GEHRING, The Denver Post |

The advantages of being a female foreign correspondent

wo scenes from Pakistan: I’m at a wedding in Islamabad, elaborate henna patterns wrapping my Thands, bangles stacked on my forearms, a gauzy pink veil thrown over my head and shoulders. Women press close around me, voicing their anger at how the American bombing of neighboring Afghanistan has diminished this happiest of occasions — oh, and wouldn’t I please have some more gulab jamun? And another: This time I’m in Peshawar, near the Khyber Pass that crosses into Afghanistan, sitting at one end of a room attached to a mosque, almost in the doorway, as far as humanly possible from where a mullah addresses a circle of men. I can’t understand what they’re saying — the male interpreter and photographer are across the room with the other men — and know only by the furious tone and the occasional “Amreeka” that the conversation is very much something I’d like to write about. And yet, even my presence in the room was a huge concession from a mullah appalled that I’d asked to be there at all. I think back to those two scenes when people ask whether being a woman makes it more difficult to report from Muslim countries, especially very conservative ones. My answer? Yes. And, no. In fact, in many ways it makes it easier. Not that it’s ever easy. If I’d been a man, I’d never have been allowed to mingle with the women in the wedding in the first scene. But I would have been included in the conversation in the second. In both instances, people were upset at how the United States was

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handling things, and my stories reflected subjected to the heat of scrutiny. But I wanted to be a writer, not a as much. Which ticks me off. Because as photographer. About the same time, I So which story was more important? long as I can remember, I’d wanted to was reading collections of Ernie Pyle’s Was the opinion of the men — some report from combat zones, and when dispatches from World War II (another of whom ran a madrassa that educated I finally got to do it, it made for some “I want to do that” moment). I hadn’t boys and certainly influenced their the most rewarding — albeit some of heard then of Martha Gellhorn or attitudes — any more newsworthy than the most challenging and, yes, thanks Marguerite Higgins. I didn’t know that that of the women, who both influence to harassment, some of the most women could go to war and write about and reflect the opinions of the men in frightening — work of my career. it. their families? By the time I started at The While we’re at it, any chance that we lame Life. I must have come across Associated Press in 1976, however, I might ditch the gender thing and talk Bthe photographs of Margaret did know about Tad Bartimus, who’d about people? Bourke-White as I paged through old reported from Vietnam and who was still Yeah. I’m a dreamer. copies (she left the magazine when I working for the wire service as a foreign If the reaction to the assault of CBS was only 2) as a child. However I found and then a national correspondent. I’d reporter Lara Logan in Cairo’s Tahrir them, I read everything by and about stand in front of the noisy old black Square (see following story) is any her that I could. There was that great teletype machines and read her stories as indication, there’s only the thinnest self-portrait of Bourke-White standing they printed out line by line and think, veneer of acceptance for women as in a leather flight suit in front of a prop yet again, “I want to do that.” foreign correspondents, one that peels plane, hair flying, heavy camera in hand. Even then, it still didn’t seem away like cheap paneling the minute it’s Who wouldn’t want to do that? possible. Bartimus was the exception. 

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decade later, I was at The A Philadelphia Inquirer, a newsroom full of exceptions. Catherine Manegold was stationed in the Philippines covering the downfall of the Marcos regime; Carol Morello was based in Cairo and cov- ered the endless Israeli-Pales- tinian conflict. Barb Demick went to the Balkans, as did Fawn Vrazo from her base in London. This time, my role models’ stories were scrolling across the in-house computer screens. By the time I finally went overseas in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, many foreign correspondents for U.S. newspapers were women. Nonetheless, the vast majority of reporters and photographers I encountered overseas were men, as were most of my which, feeling just as cut out as I had in Carlotta Gall of The New York Times, sources. the mosque, I retreated after dinner). Robin Wright of The Washington Post The latter wasn’t a complete surprise, That kind of access to women made and the Los Angeles Times — the list is given that I was reporting mostly from my own reporting fuller, richer, more very long and there’s no way to do justice conservative Muslim countries. What I balanced. Even if a fellow journalist did to all of the fine work by all of the fine hadn’t expected was that the incident at say to me one day: “What, another story journalists who happen to be women. the mosque in Peshawar would prove about women?” Which is not to say that men can’t do the exception rather than the rule. “Yes,” I replied, “another story about thorough, inclusive coverage of issues By and large, men — even extremely 50 percent of the population.” that disproportionately affect women conservative religious leaders — talked I didn’t find out until after I’d (thank you, Nicholas Kristof). with me. The down side? The groping returned from that first trip to And it ignores the nuances of gender that escalated into something worse for Afghanistan that my editors had debated issues in other societies, nuances that Logan was a frequent occurrence that whether to send me. Not because of the can often be more easily reported by leaves me nervous in crowds to this day. expense, which was astronomical. But those most affected by them. But it was more than balanced out because I’m a woman. Fifty percent of the population. by the fact that being a woman let me Giving women short shrift makes go into people’s homes and talk to other eports on Logan’s assault, in which for incomplete coverage. No news women about the effects of the conflict Rthe phrase “attractive blonde” organization can afford that these days. on the civilians who bear the brunt of popped up all too often, spurred instant Besides, if all those women over all modern warfare. That kind of access debates on whether women (presum- those decades have proven anything, it’s was difficult and sometimes impossible ably even unattractive non-blondes) that women are going to find ways to for male reporters. It was easier for should cover conflict. Whether moth- get to the story. Foreign correspondents me, as a woman, to talk to men than ers of young children should go to war. face all sorts of barriers. Those obstacles for them to commit the unpardonable Whether Logan had essentially “asked shouldn’t arise before they even leave offense of approaching women. In for it” by doing her job. home.  fact, I often found myself treated as a The insults are stunning. They ignore sort of honorary man, invited on one the fact that for many years now some Gwen Florio is the Missoulian occasion to eat dinner with the men of a of the best work in conflict zones has crime & courts reporter and a household, while the women dined in a been, and continues to be done, by former foreign correspondent for smaller room in the back of the house (to women — the AP’s Kathy Gannon, The Denver Post after 9/11.

14 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 16 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting | BY ANN FLEISCHLI | The risks of being a female foreign correspondent

re human rights violated if a assault] to colleagues and bosses because “It’s all about hustle,” she said. woman correspondent is sexu- you might get sent back or pulled out. With journalists increasingly on their ally assaulted and beaten in a There’s a lack of awareness or a lack of own, there is still the reality of violence brutal,A sustained fashion while reporting care by male supervisors.” and sexual assault against women cor- on the streets of Cairo, Egypt? Yes, but if As a foreign correspondent for 20 respondents. Unfortunately, it happened there is no report of it who will care? years, “specializing in areas of turmoil,” again in mid-March when four New On Feb. 11, Lara Logan, chief foreign Matloff covered 62 countries, heading up York Times journalists were captured correspondent for CBS News, was the African and Moscow bureaus forThe in Libya and held for six days by Col. violated, in the middle of a crowd cel- Christian Science Monitor. Muammar Gaddafi’s forces. ebrating a human rights triumph — the Matloff said she personally heard of One of the journalists, photographer resignation of Egyptian President Hosni as many as 20 cases within 20 years. Lynsey Addario, a woman, was treated Mubarak. CBS and Logan did report the “[Female correspondents] usually differently than her three fellow journal- beating and the sexual assault. don’t talk about it. As a major American ists, who were men. Once her ankles Because she reported the act, Logan news figure, it’s brave of [Logan] to come were bound with her shoelaces, she was became a heroine to many women forward.” punched in the face and her batterer worldwide. She did what women are Sexual harassment is nothing new laughed. generally reluctant to do because the to women correspondents, according Addario, in a New York Times article, very act of yelling sexual assault or to Kim Barker, a former international said, “Then I started crying and he was rape can be humiliating to women and reporter for the Chicago Tribune in laughing more.” The groping began with subjects them to the ridicule that usually Afghanistan and Pakistan. a man grabbing her breasts. “There was a follows, as her case sadly proved. It may not be acceptable, but women lot of groping. Every man who came in In a world largely run by men, correspondents are “just going to get contact with us basically felt every inch women’s complaints of sexual violence grabbed.” She said after handing out her of my body short of what was under my are usually ridiculed or ignored. The cards at a meeting, she would “get calls clothes.” result is a great deal of sexual violence, from those guys at 2 or 3 in the morning This went on for 48 hours. committed with impunity. saying ‘I love you’ — the only English A 2008 study by the Egyptian Center words they knew.” here are several handbooks now on for Women’s Rights found that 83 Barker said foreign women are Thow to safely report in foreign coun- percent of 1,000 Egyptian women considered “exotic” and often “seen as a tries. However, industry leaders need to surveyed and 98 percent of more than weird ‘third sex. Men were curious to better address safety issues like sexual as- 100 foreign women surveyed experience meet you, and women gave me different sault, which may come up while report- public sexual harassment, from groping stories, smaller stories,” she said. ing in other countries, Matloff said. to assault. Nearly 97 percent of Egyptian She said she encourages women to “[The Committee to Protect Journal- women and 87 percent of foreigners do aspire to be correspondents if they are ists] manual has absolutely nothing on not alert police after an assault, the study interested in other cultures. She suggests this. They tell you how to protect your noted. moving to the next big story country, wallet but not your virtue,” she said. Until the Logan incident, the extent studying Arabic and Islam and getting a The CPJ safety guide, however, has of sexual violence toward women foreign job as an English language reporter in a recently been edited to add information correspondents was not spoken about newspaper there. on sexual assault. much. According to former foreign cor- That way, the journalist could start “[Not going public about sexual as- respondent Judith Matloff (whose 2007 developing her “brand.” Increasingly, it sault] is endemic in society,” Matloff said. article “Unspoken,” appeared in the Co- is up to each journalist to build a career “We’ve got to get women to talk about lumbia Journalism Review), women in- with enough experience to attract grants, it and not paper it over. There used to ternational correspondents are reluctant which can be cobbled together to pay be a stigma about the trauma of sexual to report incidents of sexual violence. $250-a-day translators and $50-a-day assault. I’m hoping after this horrible “It’s a vicious circle,” she told MJR. drivers. Barker said journalists are now incident, women won’t have to suffer in “You don’t want to mention [a sexual creating their own news services. silence.” 

www.mjrmag.com 15 Published by ScholarWorks at University of Montana, 2015 17 Montana Journalism Review, Vol. 1 [2015], Iss. 40, Art. 1 | STORY & PHOTOS BY DANIEL WEST |

EMBEDDED REPORTING: ASSET OR LIABILITY?

In today’s wars in It is difficult to argue with the access while embedded with U.S. Marines in and opportunities presented by the Afghanistan. Iraq and Afghanistan, embed process to facilitate widespread Others don’t feel it is possible to the neutrality of the Western press is coverage of the wars in Iraq and take a truly neutral perspective while rarely respected by insurgent forces, Afghanistan. Significant pitfalls exist embedded. “We were embedded. We rendering independent reporting very for the unwary journalist, however. The were embedded with military units. I’m difficult, dangerous and prohibitively two most significant drawbacks are the very much against embedding because expensive. However, it is still necessary close living quarters and the narrow that’s not our job — to be embedded. for media outlets to cover the war. One perspective of the embedded journalist. Our job is to report on them with widely used solution is the practice They can only report on a small portion no obligations, none whatsoever,” implemented by the U.S. military called of the situation in which they find said Seymour Hersh, an investigative embedded reporting. Reporters and themselves, and the close living quarters journalist who has written exposés on photographers live and work with and difficult situations pose a very real the My Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib troops in the war zones, covering hazard to objective reporting. scandal, in an address at the Global operations directly, as they happen. “Living in such close quarters — and Investigative Journalism Conference While this mitigates the dangers of the intensity of being shoulder-to- in Geneva, as quoted in The New York war reporting somewhat, it has drawn shoulder during combat — forges a Times’ At War blog. “And I know that significant fire from critics who argue rare level of kinship and loyalty among puts me in a minority with a lot of that it is impossible for reporters living men. As a journalist, you are not exempt people, but when you are embedded and working in such close quarters from this bond, which makes remaining with a military unit, the inevitable to maintain a neutral and unbiased entirely objective difficult,” wrote Finbarr instinct is to not report everything you perspective or to give any kind of larger O’Reilly, a Reuters photographer, in The see, because you get to know them, they perspective in their reports. New York Times’ Lens photography blog are protecting you, etc.,” he continued. 

16 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 18 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

“Embedded reporters must tread a thin line, striving constantly to maintain their objectivity and to provide balanced and full coverage of their stories.”

Published by ScholarWorks at University of Montana, 2015 19 Montana Journalism Review, Vol. 1 [2015], Iss. 40, Art. 1 | EMBEDDED REPORTING | DANIEL WEST |

shley Gilbertson, who worked as a of the military allowed us to tell the and when they are pieced together, they Aphotographer in Iraq, first as a story from the perspective of the Iraqi have the potential to provide a fairly freelancer, then for The New York Times, civilians.” accurate representation of events in Iraq described a similar situation with a On the other hand, he states: “I have and Afghanistan. The contributions real-world example from his experience been back to Iraq many times since those made by independent journalists are also embedded with the Army. In Samarra, early, chaotic days . . . I have also key ingredients for any news outlet that he encountered a situation where things embedded with the military on many seeks to fully cover the wars. got out of control after the discovery of occasions, and it is obvious that the nother criticism of embedded some incriminating booklets. ability to travel side by side with the journalism lies in the military “Before a semicircle of American young men and women fighting the war A control over an embedded journalist. soldiers, Money Mike [the platoon’s is essential. We needed to be with them Popular perception likens the military’s interpreter] grabbed the suspect, threw not only to tell their stories but also role to that of a censor. him against a wall and shouted him because as Iraq descended into anarchy, Looking back to his early embeds, to the ground until the man cowered traveling in certain parts of the country New York Times’ Steven Lee Myers said, below him like a scared dog. Mike took was only possible if embedded.” “Embedding then, as now, imposed a baton he had looted and beat the man A reporter on the ground only restrictions on reporters. We were not hitting his arms allowed to report and stabbing his exact location ribs and stomach. and size of units, He then drew a “The military would often like more control, their planned bayonet from his operations or belt and started as when objective media members present the names of threatening a story, ‘warts and all,’ but in the end, the those killed. ... In the man with the end, I never renewed fury. Lt. arrangement is mutually beneficial.” encountered Tabankin finally an effort to stopped him with restrict anything the words, ‘I hate sees a small slice of the war. However, I wrote, though an officer complained to say this Mike, but put the knife away with some ingenuity, courage and that I described how two American ... I mean, I have to be frank: There’s a perseverance, reporters can get through tanks had been destroyed. I felt I never reporter here.’ I looked the lieutenant in to the meat of the story, and in some compromised my obligation to be fair the eyes and lied, ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t cases get all sides — even from an and honest. And some of what I wrote photograph it.’” embed. Take the example of New York as a result was hardly flattering to the In that case, Gilbertson had actually Times reporter Sam Dagher, who American war effort.” not taken the picture. When he realized covered a story in Mosul, initially from a Sebastian Junger, in his book, “War,” it later, he described his feelings this way: military embed. He first used his embed written after a series of embeds in “I had grown too close to the platoon to cover the military perspective of the Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, relates an and had unintentionally protected them. story, but in order to cover it fully, he instance of misunderstanding: “Once at I was incredibly upset. I most certainly needed the political facet as well. To a dinner party back home I was asked, would have filed the image to the paper. gain that, he wrote, he had to use some with a kind of knowing wink, how much ... That failure to photograph Mike with contacts and take some risks. He finally the military had ‘censored’ my reporting. the bayonet was the first and last time I was able to reach both Sunni Arab and I answered that I’d never been censored allowed camaraderie in war to obstruct Kurdish factions in the city, in order to at all and that once I’d asked a public my work as a photojournalist — on an fully cover the story. affairs officer to help me fact-check an embed or anywhere.” That type of effort may provide the article and he’d answered, ‘Sure, but you arc Santora has covered Iraq from template for those reporters covering can’t actually show it to me — that would Mboth the embedded perspective stories that are best served by covering be illegal.’” and the unilateral perspective. Of the all perspectives. The media and the military are unilateral perspective, he writes: “As the Again, those who have actually spent brought together on an embed and are name suggests, we were most definitely time embedded argue that, even though often uneasy companions with wildly on our own. That was the point. While the perspective may be somewhat different goals. However, both sides gain embedding provided one view of the war limited, it is quite valuable. Each small from the arrangement — the media as it was waged — from the command slice of the picture represented by an through strong content and the military on down — being outside the confines embedded reporter is part of the whole, through some measure of control. The

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military would often like more control, In the end, journalists are responsible as when objective media members for their own work. They must be able present a story, “warts and all,” but in to recognize when their objectivity may the end, the arrangement is mutually become compromised and take steps beneficial. The military understands that, to prevent that. They must recognize and the media ground rules state very when the perspective they are offered is specifically what may not be covered in not deep enough. If journalists do not the interest of security. have the integrity and the professional Besides, as Myers states in his blog, pride to do so, they will not provide “If the military tries too hard to control neutral, balanced coverage anywhere the message, as my colleague Tim — much less in a combat zone. The Arango and I have experienced on recent embed process provides a valuable embeds, that’s just one more obstacle opportunity for direct access to the to overcome in the reporting, one more troops on the ground during the longest thing to report.” war in American history. This cannot be ignored. The tool is not a perfect one, but mbedded reporters must tread a thin it is the best one available right now.  Eline, striving constantly to maintain their objectivity and to provide balanced Dan West is a 2010 J-School and full coverage of their stories. The photo graduate and U.S. Army ethical and professional considerations are many, and the potential for veteran. abuse is very real. However, with the extreme hazards and costs inherent in independent journalism in an area where journalists are not recognized as neutral, it is the best option available.

www.mjrmag.com 19 Published by ScholarWorks at University of Montana, 2015 21 Montana Journalism Review, Vol. 1 [2015], Iss. 40, Art. 1

A drowning rice bowl

| STORY & PHOTOS BY KEVIN RADLEY |

20 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 22 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

he developing countries that people and their livelihoods but also a relatively high pH to regulate the depend on southern Vietnam’s reducing Vietnam’s cheap rice export, spread of disease and pests. A lower inexpensive rice exports could creating a global food shortage. pH can weaken a shrimp’s exoskeleton, face starvation with the onset Coastal areas, like the Mekong Delta, decreasing its immunity to disease. ofT rising sea levels due to climate change. are also predicted to have an increased Dr. Be said rice farmers might also The low-lying landscape of Vietnam’s intensity of tropical storms, which could be able to adapt to the consequences of “rice bowl,” the Mekong Delta, will likely flood the “rice bowl” and possibly drown saltwater intrusion by using new rice be able to only produce rice for domestic most of the production in some areas. varieties the International Rice Research consumption if sea levels continue to Ironically, rice is a crop that grows in Institute is currently researching. As of rise, a global concern considering the ample amounts of water but cannot now, one variety of rice is able to grow in country’s worldwide rice exports. survive if submerged for a long period. brackish waters containing up to 6 grams “Maybe in the future we will likely be Further adverse weather conditions, of salt per liter, while another variety is able to feed ourselves,” said Dr. Nguyen including Vietnam’s most recent severe able to grow submerged in fresh water for Van Be, referring to Vietnam’s rice drought in 2010, are only predicted to get up to 20 days. production, “but many other people will worse. Last spring, the National Hydro- The institute hopes to blend these be starving.” two varieties, creating a single salt- Dr. Be is a professor at Vietnam’s water and flood-tolerant rice to help Can Tho University’s Department the delta’s rice farmers maintain of Environmental and Natural “Vietnamese rice farmers are production and adapt to climate Resource Management. He and increasingly forced to look for change in a sustainable manner. many other CTU professors have Another solution for Vietnam’s researched this potential global alternative growing techniques future is to stop the saltwater issue. or a new livelihood.” altogether. A proposal backed Vietnam is one of the world’s by many politicians is to build a leading producers and exporters of U-shaped dike that stretches 700 rice, coming in second to Thailand, its Meteorological Forecasting Centre for kilometers from the southernmost usual competitor, in 2010, according to southern Vietnam recorded water levels provinces on the East Sea of Vietnam to the International Rice Research Institute. in the Mekong River at around a 20- just south of Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam The country produced close to 38 million year low. The center blamed the record must now weigh its options and decide tons of rice­­ — roughly half of which was drought on an unusually short rainy what is best for the future in a changing grown in the Mekong Delta. season teamed with less upstream flow. climate. Dr. Be said the delta produces a These conditions led to a longer dry A massive dike will create new jobs, lower quality of rice than countries like season, which strangled farmers’ available much needed infrastructure and probably Thailand and India. He the lower quality fresh water and allowed seawater to maintain the majority of rice production, — and therefore lower cost — product reportedly creep as far as 60 kilometers but it may also cost Vietnam the already allows Vietnam to export around 6 inland. During a typical dry season, decreasing natural environment and the million tons of cheap rice to a niche saltwater invades around 30 kilometers safety of the vulnerable people living in market of underdeveloped countries inland. the delta. around the world. Yet 90 percent of those In these changing environments, Whatever the country’s decision, rice exports from Vietnam are cultivated Vietnamese rice farmers are increasingly rice should continue to be the staple of in the Mekong Delta, which sits only two forced to look for alternative growing Vietnam and the heart of its agricultural meters above sea level. techniques or a new livelihood. economy. The crop is not just a segment Thus southern Vietnam’s vertically Rather than growing rice, some of the Vietnamese diet and GDP, it is challenged countryside is facing an farmers channel their land into saltwater deeply embedded in the cultural values enormous problem. There is scientific ponds for shrimp cultivation. The result of the country’s growing population of 88 consensus that by the end of the century is larger profits and greater viability given million people.  sea levels will rise about 1 meter. With the saltier conditions. more saltwater inland, soils will become Yet shrimp farming may not be the Kevin Radley is a graduate increasingly saline, which, in turn, will sustainable answer the delta needs. student at the UM School of drastically reduce rice yields in the delta. Given the amount of excess carbon in This could change the entire our atmosphere, it is predicted that the Journalism and plans to be a hydrology of the Mekong Delta, affecting oceans’ pH levels will decline. Producing photojournalist specializing in not only the area’s 18 million Vietnamese healthy shrimp requires saltwater with environmental issues.

www.mjrmag.com 21 Published by ScholarWorks at University of Montana, 2015 23 Montana Journalism Review, Vol. 1 [2015], Iss. 40, Art. 1 | BY ROMAN STUBBS |

The world of Al-Jazeera English

hen Pacifica Radio entered unbiased news I’d heard in years and competition with smothering boots-on- negotiations to become the years and years,” Bates said. “Things the-ground reporting, complemented first network in the United kept going wrong within our network with context and commentary. StatesW to carry Al-Jazeera English on its that kept pushing the start date back. In The managing director of Al-Jazeera airwaves, Tony Bates went to work, do- November, however, at my insistence, on English, Al Anstey, told National Public ing what he does best. He listened. a network meeting with all of the man- Radio in February that the website’s traf- Not that he calls it a premonition. But agers, I insisted that there had been too fic had increased by 2,500 percent in the when Pacifica became the first network many delays and that we really needed to opening days of the Egyptian protests, to carry AJE last November, just three begin to carry it.” adding that 50 percent of that traffic was months before the controversial Qatar- WBAI in New York became the first in the United States. It’s a testament to based outfit would simultaneously Pacifica station to broadcast AJE — the foothold Al-Jazeera has established explode in popularity while civil strife something Bates said he was initially in 2011. For AJE, this is the year that is imploded the Middle East, it was Bates criticized in-house for but nonetheless evoking memories of the Gulf War, when who knew his station had just cashed called a coup when it came to covering a small and hungry outfit named CNN in. As the program director of Pacifica’s the spread of revolutions in the Middle capitalized on front-line reporting. U.S. New York branch, he had started to East this past winter. What is clear is that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rocked listen to AJE every day when he caught AJE wasn’t just spearheading coverage the media landscape in a speech to the wind of the negotiations. from Egypt, or Tunisia or Yemen, but Senate Foreign Relations Committee on “I found it to be the best, most the network was drilling international March 2, when she said, “You may not

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agree with [Al-Jazeera], but you feel like first study to “evaluate attitudes toward University of Oxford professor Walter you’re getting real news around the clock AJE in an experimental context,” deems Armbrust, who teaches Middle East instead of a million commercials and, it unlikely that the network will break studies, has contributed several political you know, arguments between talking into the American television market. commentaries to AJE since the uprisings, heads and the kind of stuff that we do The study focuses on 177 viewers from suggests that where AJE is picking up on our news, which is not particularly an online survey community called the most ground in the 2011 American informative to us.” Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, who were media market is through its Web traf- “The way thought leaders are discuss- assigned to watch an AJE news report fic. He said one of his stories picked up ing Jazeera English has changed dramati- online regarding the Taliban and its 150,000 reads and that statistics point to cally,” said Lawrence Pintak, a former “position towards peace talks with the American college students increasingly CBS News Middle East correspondent government in Kabul.” visiting the website. But the web plat- and the founding dean of the Edward R. The viewers were divided into three form is distinctly different from Ameri- Murrow College of Communication at groups: AJE, CNN International and a can television audiences. Washington State University. “The fact control group, which didn’t watch a seg- “It’s hard to imagine that AJE will that Hillary Clinton is dissing the Amer- ment. For those in the CNNI group, the ever be in the American market on an ican media and saying Jazeera equal footing with its American English is providing the news, the counterparts. For one thing, AJE’s fact that Jazeera English is being “Jazeera English’s strength is focus is relatively regional, hence watched in the White House, Americans are only likely to notice the fact that people like Sam that it has Al-Jazeera in the it when dramatic events are taking Donaldson said on “This Week,” name, and its Achilles Heel place in the Middle East,” said ‘Thank God for Al-Jazeera’ — that Armbrust, who is from Omaha, changes people’s perceptions.” has been the fact that it has Neb. “I have no doubt that for The coverage, most notably in many family members and high Cairo, was praised by many media Al Jazeera in the name.” school classmates in the place I pundits as versatile — from grew up Al-Jazeera is as toxic as striking images and video being ever. But those are people whose broadcast with print news reports and study removed the AJE branding from opinions are quite hardened and unlikely interactive blogging alike — and it was the story and replaced it with the CNNI to change.” beginning to expose young stars, such as insignia, and all viewers rated the report Small victories have been won in Ayman Mohyeldin, who is becoming a on a seven-point Lichter scale to screen the United States for AJE, such as with media darling after his gritty reporting for views on bias. Pacifica. And Pintak believes that despite from Tahrir Square. Mohyeldin spoke to Following the viewing, the pool was preconceived notions of the network that Pintak’s students at Washington State in asked a series of questions, including were planted by the Bush administration, late March. whether or not they would directly pres- AJE has a fighting chance to win legiti- “When we asked the students ‘How sure a company in support of carrying macy among American news consumers. many of you have watched Jazeera Eng- Al-Jazeera English, as well as questions Through the comments of Donaldson lish? And how many of you have seen of whether the clip they viewed was and Clinton, for example, cable and Ayman? It was maybe, you know, 20 or laced with bias. satellite providers now have an incentive 25 percent of the audience,” said Pintak. The pool that viewed the report to broadcast AJE, a pressure that didn’t “But they were there because of the star marked AJE believed the station was previously exist, he said. power, the drawing power, the intrigue less biased than those in the control “Jazeera English’s strength is that it of Al-Jazeera English.” and CNNI pools, but according to the has Al-Jazeera in the name,” said Pintak, Intriguing or not, AJE has yet to authors of the report, William Youmans “and its Achilles’ heel has been the fact make inroads with American radio and and Katie Brown, “the differences were that it has Al-Jazeera in the name.”  television audiences. Bates said Pacifica’s non-significant.” popularity grew during the Egyptian While the report doesn’t necessarily uprisings but only because of the exclu- depict a concrete sentiment of American sivity. Only three cities — Washington, television viewers, its significance rests D.C., Burlington, Vt., and Toledo, Ohio in the news consumers in the Western Roman Stubbs was the 2011 — currently broadcast AJE on cable and world and how preconceived perceptions editor of the Montana Kaimin. satellite providers. of AJE may be too much for the network A University of Michigan report to overcome in the war to win cable He graduated with majors in released in March, considered to be the deals in the United States. journalism and history.

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| STORY & PHOTOS BY TIMOTHY CHASE |

ANONYMOUS in Burma

general population has been left to fend security apparatus said to employ one in n the interest of full for itself. The average annual income is every four Burmese. disclosure, my name estimated at $500. Several foreign newsmen penetrated I Human Rights Watch calls Myanmar the bamboo curtain last November to is not Timothy Chase. one of the worst human rights abusers. cover the release from house arrest of Transparency International ranks it as pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. I write this story, indeed any story the second most corrupt nation, behind Seven were rounded up and expelled. about Myanmar, under a pseudonym. Somalia. Reporters Without Borders Others were inexplicably allowed to This is absolutely essential because puts it fifth from the bottom for press stay and interview Suu Kyi. Perhaps the I want to go back there to continue freedom. The Committee to Protect generals felt stories about her freedom documenting, writing and talking about Journalists says it’s the worst place in the would reflect favorably on them, for a the struggles and perseverance of people world to be a blogger. change. living under one of the world’s most Heavy-handed government censors Myanmar is a place that can enthrall oppressive regimes. screen every story that appears in the you with enchantment one moment and Myanmar, also known as Burma, sits Burmese press or on local television. A paralyze you with paranoia the next. between India and China in Southeast journalist there toes the line or becomes “There are eyes and ears everywhere” Asia. It has been ruled by a military another of the regime’s nearly 2,200 is the constant reminder from one of my dictatorship since 1962. The generals political prisoners. At this writing, 27 guide friends there. I wouldn’t dare tell put a civilian face on their regime in reporters, photographers or bloggers are her I’m a photojournalist. But I know she elections last November, but as friends in behind bars. knows. She takes the risk of helping me Myanmar say, “same wine, new bottle.” Foreign journalists are not welcome. as her way of fighting back. The generals, their families and their To get in, you have to lie about your I’ve been hassled a few times by cronies have become fabulously wealthy occupation on the visa application and officious local policemen wanting to selling the country’s natural resources pose as a tourist. Once you’re there, know why I was taking pictures of, say, — teak, natural gas, oil, minerals. The you do everything possible to avoid a kids scavenging in garbage piles, or why

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I’m spending so much time at a pagoda, was drained from his face. We had no Revolution” of 2007 and Burmese troops or why I’m talking with monks at a idea what would happen to him or the opening fire on them? All of it came monastery. The “I’m just a stupid tourist” others.” from Burmese journalists using digital ploy has always served me well. So far. They learned later that there were no cameras, cell phones and the Internet. ramifications for their Burmese friends Many were rounded up later and given y colleagues Karen Coates, Jerry or students. But to this day, Karen long prison terms. MRedfern and Jacob Baynham, all wonders why she and Jerry were thrown University of Montana J-School grads, out and may never be allowed back in. acob Baynham, just out of the School haven’t been so lucky. Their experiences They were sent packing the same Jof Journalism, headed for Myanmar as journalists in Myanmar left them day that John Yettaw, a Bible-carrying after the uprising had been crushed. spooked. Missourian, swam across a lake in Years earlier, as a high school graduate, In 2009, Karen, an author and Yangon to the home of Suu Kyi, who he had traveled there, seen the reali- freelance writer, and her husband, Jerry, was then still under house arrest for ties of oppression and decided to make a photographer, had been invited by the opposing the regime. The bizarre journalism his calling. U.S. Embassy to conduct workshops for incident gained international attention “After the monks protested in Burmese writers and photographers in and cost Suu Kyi another 18 months of September, I wanted to get there as soon Mandalay. This was as possible,” he says. “I their second such really wanted to tell the trip. The curricula stories of that place.” had been cleared by “I wouldn’t dare tell her I’m a photo- Now, early in 2008, he the government. They was in central Myanmar knew better than to journalist. But I know she knows.” posing as a backpacker talk politics with their who just wanted to see students. a river known for good On the side, Karen and Jerry were confinement for sheltering Yettaw. He fishing. What he was really after was a working on a story about laphet thote, was held for a few weeks and then sent story about a secret jungle construction a tangy Burmese delicacy made of home. site where, rumor had it, the regime fermented tea leaves mixed with sesame was ramping up some sort of nuclear seeds and peanuts. (Karen is a food ould Karen and Jerry somehow have installation. writer of some renown.) Cbeen caught up in the Yettaw case? A guide named Kyaw Kyaw had The night the workshops ended, Could their interest in laphet thote have agreed to go along. The effusive man, Karen and Jerry returned to their been seen as an investigation into how who called himself Jo Jo, bragged to hotel from dinner to find a group of some exported laphet thote had been villagers along the way that Jacob was plainclothes and uniformed policemen tainted with toxic food dye? Did they “an American! An American! First to waiting for them. say something “wrong” in their classes? the moon and now first to your village!” “They told us we needed to go with What about the published rumors later After a day of hiking and hitching, them,” Karen says. “They didn’t tell us (all denied) that they were with the CIA, the two found themselves in a remote why. I don’t think they knew why. They that they had been consorting with dis- village where Jacob reckons he was the just said they had orders.” sident monks, that they had attended a first white man many of the children The policemen would entertain no skit for foreigners that poked fun at the had seen. The villagers were friendly appeals. Nor would they let Karen and regime? but nervous. They said they had heard Jerry make a phone call. “Who knows?” Karen says. explosions from just across the next The two Americans had 20 minutes What she does know is that she mountain range and seen helicopters. to pack. Then they would be taken on and Jerry got a serious taste of the The army had warned them never to go the overnight train to Yangon. There, intimidation and fear imposed on there. They advised the two hikers to go after hours of bureaucratic confusion Burmese journalists and photographers, back. and futile embassy attempts to free some of whom secretly work for exile Jacob and Kyaw Kyaw chose them, they would be put on a plane to opposition media or for the BBC discretion over valor. The next morning, Bangkok. Karen and Jerry were being Burmese Service, Voice of America or they returned to the town of Maymyo. expelled. Radio Free Asia. There, as they were about to part ways, “We were both terrified, especially “They take huge risks every day,” she plainclothes policemen on motorbikes for the people we had worked with,” says. “It’s hard to think about what they appeared, told them “get on,” whisked Karen says now. “As we pulled away go through.” them off to a police station on the edge from the hotel, I remember seeing one of Who can forget the reportage and of town, sat them down and began our friends standing there. All the color images of monks leading the “Saffron peppering them with questions. They

www.mjrmag.com 25 Published by ScholarWorks at University of Montana, 2015 27 Montana Journalism Review, Vol. 1 [2015], Iss. 40, Art. 1 |ANONYMOUS | TIMOTHY CHASE |

wanted Jacob’s passport — “now!” “That’s when I realized this was a bad situation,” Jacob says. “There were 11 of them, some with walkie-talkies. One of them was very aggressive and angry toward Kyaw Kyaw.” The interrogators gave no indication they spoke English. They used Kyaw Kyaw as a translator to question Jacob. Who was he? Why was he in Myanmar? What did he study in school? Why did he want to go where he had gone? On and on. Jacob stuck to the back- packer story.

sign on the otherwise Abare wall read “All re- spect, all suspect.” You don’t get to call an attorney in Myan- mar. “I was trying to stay focused,” Jacob he says. “I should have hidden those “I don’t know what happened to him says. “But the situation was escalating.” pictures and encoded that notebook.” after that,” Jacob says. The interrogators wanted to see the Kyaw Kyaw knew the owner of the From Mandalay, Jacob went to pictures in his digital camera. The photos computer shop. Quietly, Jacob told his Yangon but sensed he was being of the hike and village were harmless guide “I need some of those photos to followed everywhere. enough. But then there were shots of disappear.” Kyaw Kyaw said he would see “I’ve never felt so paranoid in my teak logs being trucked to Yangon, of what he could do. The owner was already life,” he says. the Moustache Brothers troupe that copying the photos from Jacob’s card to Then he went to see one of his artist makes fun of the regime for foreigners a computer. The owner told the police he friends. Awaiting him there was a man in Mandalay, of the work and tattoos would make them a CD. who introduced himself as being from of dissident artists and rappers — all the tourism ministry. indicating a curious photojournalist at hen, as suddenly as the frighten- “You shouldn’t have hired that guide,” work. Ting episode had begun, it was over. the man said. “They knew they had something The police returned Jacob’s passport The paranoia spiked. How did this there,” Jacob says. “That’s when I started and bundled him into a truck bound for man know about Kyaw Kyaw? And how panicking. My heart started pounding. nearby Mandalay. did he know where to find Jacob? And I’d never felt that kind of panic before. … “Thank you very much,” the senior when? There was nothing I could do.” policeman told him. “Have a wonderful A few days later, Jacob flew to Jacob was tempted to hit the delete stay in our country.” Bangkok. button as the police took him to a Kyaw Kyaw came to the truck Now, three years later, he wants to go computer shop to make copies of the window and shook Jacob’s hand. back to Myanmar someday. photos. But he knew that would only “Don’t worry about the photos,” he “What happened to me didn’t put me make things worse. The last thing he whispered. “I have taken care of them.” off the country,” he says. “It just made me wanted was for them to start searching As the truck pulled away, Jacob realize how important it is to be smart for more incriminating evidence. For in glanced in the rear-view mirror. There about doing journalism there.” his backpack were two notebooks with was Kyaw Kyaw in the grip of the most In the meantime, he is asking me to the names and numbers of the dissidents fearsome interrogator. do him a favor: he had interviewed in Yangon. Jacob talked with Kyaw Kyaw on the “If you get to Maymyo, can you see if “I was distraught and worried and phone a couple of days later. The guide Kyaw Kyaw is still there?”  feeling foolish that I hadn’t been safer,” said he was all right but needed money.

26 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 28 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

Risky business

| BY NEIL C. LIVINGSTONE |

was picked up in a black sedan anything could have happened. I no Philippines, Algeria, Russia, Colombia in Moscow and driven around longer had any control of the situation and Pakistan. The largest number of through the Russian capital’s and was placing my well-being in the victims were covering wars, then politics crowded streets for more than an hands of people I didn’t know. So it is by public corruption. Ihour to throw off any tail or surveillance. when meeting with terrorists and other Among those seriously injured in Finally, we arrived at the Ukraina Hotel, criminals, whether reporter or on other Iraq were Bob Woodruff, the co-anchor located at a bend on the Moskva River, business. of ABC’s “World News Tonight,” and opposite the House of Government of his cameraman, Doug Vogt. They the Russian Federation (White House). merican journalist Daniel Pearl were embedded with the 4th Infantry A familiar landmark, the Ukraina is one Adiscovered this the hard way. An Division in Iraq when their convoy of the seven “wedding cake” skyscrapers al-Qaida-affiliated group named the was attacked by an IED (improvised (so known for their distinctive over- National Movement for the Restora- explosive device) and small arms fire. wrought designs) built by Joseph Stalin tion of Pakistani Sovereignty in 2002 Both men suffered traumatic head in the early 1950s. abducted Pearl, who worked for The injuries and other wounds to their I was led upstairs to a small bar Wall Street Journal. He was under the upper bodies, and Woodruff was kept overlooking the cityscape where I was impression that he was going to meet a in a medically induced coma for 36 introduced to three people: an Armenian local sheikh at a restaurant in downtown days to aid in his recovery. He had just man and woman and a slightly built Karachi, Pakistan, as a part of a story he succeeded longtime ABC evening news middle-aged man who resembled the was researching involving the so-called anchor Peter Jennings when the incident late Austrian actor Oskar Werner. shoe bomber, Richard Reid. He was occurred, but his recovery was slow and The Armenian couple remained silent beheaded nine days later and his captors painful, and he never returned to the while the third member of their party videotaped the actual event. During anchor chair. described his career as a terrorist, first his interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, with the German Red Army Faction Cuba, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the y good friend Kimberly Dozier, (RAF aka Baader Meinhof Gang) and mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terror- Mwho was working for CBS at the later as the RAF’s representative to the ist attacks, admitted that he was the one time, was also one of those who nar- Popular Front for the Liberation of who had wielded the knife. rowly survived a terrorist bomb attack in Palestine (PFLP) based in Beirut, despite In 2009, a record 121 journalists Iraq. When the IED went off, it killed the the fact he was Jewish. He was also around the globe were killed by rest of her crew. She writes of the 2006 known as the “best bomb builder west of terrorists, criminals, governments and incident: “I was flung into the air, but I Amman (Jordan).” armed groups, both on the left and don’t remember landing. By the time I My clandestine meeting with a the right. Since 1992, the number of did, both legs were smashed from the terrorist turned out all right, although journalists killed in the line of the duty sheer force of being knocked back, and it is clear that once I stepped into the exceeds 850. More were lost in Iraq the explosion had scorched much of my car that took me to the rendezvous than any other country, followed by the right leg, some of my left and parts of my

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|RISKY BUSINESS | NEIL C. LIVINGSTONE |

arms. I was peppered with bits of molten the Gaza Strip and held for nearly four writes Carroll, “but that’s precisely what metal and car parts, which were embed- months. During that time, he became a dozens of journalists have done. The ded in me from head to toe.” familiar figure on the news as the British result is a motley group of freelance network sought to keep his story in reporters taking up residence in imberly died five times on the oper- the public eye. Jill Carroll was another Baghdad’s seediest hotels — including Kating table, and she has had, to date, prominent kidnap victim. A stringer for a former brothel — and churning 23 operations to address her extensive the Christian Science Monitor, she was out stories on shoestring budgets in wounds. She is now working as a print abducted in Iraq in early 2008 and not a country the Committee to Protect journalist for The Associated Press, cov- released until March 30. Journalists ranked the most dangerous in ering intelligence issues. Thus, it is clear that reporting on the world for journalists.” Another risk is that of being the front lines of wars and terrorist A small portion of those who thrive kidnapped and held for a long period conflicts is a dangerous business and in war zones are there not just for of time. During the 1980s, State not for the faint of heart. Terrorists are professional advancement but because Department official Terry Arnold and particularly disdainful of the protections they are action junkies. One Emmy I were tasked with initiating meetings ordinarily extended to the media and Award-winning journalist friend of mine with various terrorists, brigands and often view members of the press corps as delighted in skateboarding on the roof of other criminals who one of Saddam’s palaces claimed to be holding in Iraq, skiing in the U.S. hostages in disputed Swat Valley of Lebanon and thereby “The irony, of course, is that publicity Pakistan and generally assessing the credibility is the mother’s milk of terrorism.” pursues a variety of of their claims. Jeremy extreme sports in war Levin, CNN’s Beirut zones around the globe. bureau chief, was legitimate targets. The irony, of course, In the final analysis, journalism one such hostage, but the best known is that publicity is the mother’s milk schools should consider offering their hostage was surely AP correspondent of terrorism, consistent with the old students who want to report from Terry Anderson, who was held six years axiom, “kill one, frighten a million.” overseas courses in self-protection, and nine months by Hezbollah terrorists Terrorists need the media to report survival and even basic medical skills. before being released. on their depredations because, in its This might help to address some of the While Terry Arnold and I were not most elemental form, terrorism is a frivolous and unprepared journalists involved in either man’s release, we did form of communication. It’s not about like the correspondent from a major encounter one bona fide hostage taker. destroying armies or seizing cities but, U.S. publication who arrived in Iraq not He was a Jabba the Hutt look-alike, so instead, about terrifying their enemies knowing how to dig a slit trench latrine obese that a button actually popped into submission or into implementing and with her backpack stuffed full of old off his shirt as he eased his formidable unwise or heavy-handed policies, which issues of Cosmopolitan magazine instead figure into his chair and produced undermine their popular support. of water (or water purification tablets), from his pocket a wallet belonging to insect repellent, medications, a poncho American University of Beirut librarian panish terrorists used to say, “the and other survival gear. Peter Kilburn. The U.S. government Sworse, the better,” because the blood- Top government officials working for ultimately made a deal to secure ier the terrorist attack, the more likely it the State Department and the Pentagon Kilburn’s freedom, but before he could was to garner headlines. But individual often are required to attend courses be released the United States bombed targets, if significant enough like Pope designed to minimize their risks as Libya, in retaliation for various terrorist John Paul II, who was shot in 1981 by a terrorist targets while overseas, and some attacks, on April 14 (April 15 in Tripoli), Turkish terrorist, also can produce the courses even include a section on how to 1986. The Libyan government dispatched headlines terrorists are looking for. survive as a hostage if taken captive.  a Maj. Khalifa from its embassy in Many journalists say that reporting Damascus to Beirut. Khalifa bought on wars and terrorism is a sure way to Kilburn and two British hostages from jumpstart their careers. According to Neil Livingstone is an the brigands holding them, presumably Jill Carroll, the stringer kidnapped in expert on terrorism and by offering more money than the United Iraq, journalists — often at their own national security and is States. Their bodies were found on a expense — flocked to Iraq in hopes that CEO of ExecutiveAction, garbage dump in Beirut on April 17. their reporting could land them jobs In 2007, BBC correspondent Alan with major newspapers or television LLC, an international risk Johnston was kidnapped on a street in networks. “It may sound like lunacy,” management company.

28 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 30 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

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Published by ScholarWorks at University of Montana, 2015 31 Montana Journalism Review, Vol. 1 [2015], Iss. 40, Art. 1 | BY DAVE KINDRED | From Quarterbacks to Quakes

(Reprinted with permission from the National Sports Journalism Center website and edited for space)

hat does a sportswriter say “Maybe our future children will have in knit caps and tissues, they chased when his vacation is inter- flippers, not tails,” Cox said. north. Their taxi driver, a woman rupted by an earthquake, Her husband held in his hand a bag named Yoskiko, sometimes peeked in Wtsunami, and nuclear disaster? of peanuts, meant for breakfast and din- her rear-view mirror at the masked This: “Hello, friends. Just quick up- ner, bought as a last resort after grocery duo and giggled. This while her radio date. My Japan vacation has turned into shelves had been stripped bare. But now, reported 4,000 dead and 10,000 missing. bit of a work trip.” with invisible peril in the air, a life deci- This while running low on gas with no It’s Rick Maese tweeting: “Not sure sion had to be made: to eat or not to eat? gas stations open. This on empty roads what we’ll find, but currently making Discretion being the better part of through ghostly towns. This with warn- our way north toward area damaged by radioactive valor, Maese tossed away the ings of another tsunami, three meters quake and tsunami.” bag. He said, “Nuke nuts!” high. This after an announcement of a Maese works the Redskins beat for And they motored on toward the hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima The Washington Post. He and his wife, story that began for them four days nuclear plant. Erin Cox, a reporter for the Annapolis earlier in southern Japan, 700 miles from Another Maese tweet: “Total car Capital, were in Hiroshima when the the tsunami damage. There they walked time: 11 hrs. Still ways to go. Just got earth moved, an ocean spilled over, and on ground once incinerated by an atomic detoured off the North-South artery a nuclear plant went ker-boom. So they bomb that killed perhaps 90,000 people cuz of landslides. Good news: I’m not did what reporters do. They went to see. by shock wave and radiation poisoning. radioactive yet.” Tweet: “Not simple. 5 hrs last night Maese and Cox were at Hiroshima’s train The first time Rick Maese walked on road 2 so far today. And still maybe station when they saw people crowding into the Albuquerque Tribune’s news- halfway there.” room, he knew he wanted to be a They looked like highway ban- sportswriter. His first by-line came dits – if highway bandits rode in on a story about New Mexico the back seat of a taxi and traded “Just got detoured off the high school football players going wisecracks about radiation poi- to Australia. With some pain, he soning. They wore red knit caps North-South artery cuz remembers his lede: “Care for a tugged to their eyebrows. They game of football, mate?” He was tucked white tissue under their of landslides. Good news: 14 years old. Today, a star at 31, glasses and let it hang past their Maese has been a metro columnist chins. They were in this get-up I’m not radioactive yet.” for the Orlando Sentinel and a in a taxi on a mountainside road. –Maese tweet sports columnist for the Baltimore They had brought the knit caps Sun. because a friend wanted a picture He has written the space of a Washington Capitals’ cap in Japan. around televisions. They saw images of shuttle Columbia tragedy and the Cal Intending to buy the surgical masks the tsunami rushing ashore in northeast Ripken triumph, the Olympics and a worn by Japanese as safeguard against Japan. In a story for her newspaper a presidential campaign. It took the Post disease, they had mis-translated a word week later, Cox wrote that they saw cars about five minutes to hire him when the and wound up with facial tissue, after floating upside-down, “joined by sheds, Sun was dismembered by its owner, Sam warnings to cover their skin. Well, yes. then fishing boats, then entire buildings Zell, a loon. Maese can do anything you Of course. For sure. When I’m in danger that rose, bobbed and were swept into a want done any way you want it – from of being lit up by radiation, I want the nearby bridge.” basketball to tsunami survivors, this on impenetrable protection of Kleenex. When Maese woke the next morn- March 1, this on March 13. There was gallows humor born of ra- ing, he heard from editors at the Post. “I So can all the good sportswriters. diation’s fearsome possibilities. “An extra was already on the ground,” he said this They come to the business as reporters, finger or two,” Maese said to his wife, week. “So the decision was, do we end not fans, as writers, not fans. “and I’d be the world’s fastest-typing our vacation and chase the story?” sportswriter.” They chased, together. Armored-up See Quarterbacks, page 40

30 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 32 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting | BY DAVE KINDRED | Against the Wall: Reporting on China

| BY KATHLEEN E. MCLAUGHLIN |

e are both loved and approach to pressure on journalists is the trend will move toward increasing loathed by Chinese extremely effective. flexibility and access,” Daverio said. “But sources and colleagues, Caught between the global hunger when the Chinese authorities perceive chastened by the coun- for news about China, now the world’s signs of possible political turmoil, such try’sW top leaders for being biased, and at second-largest economy, and ongoing as the Jasmine Revolution or Tibetan the same time criticized by international problematic reporting conditions, protests in 2008, they quickly blame human rights workers for complaining correspondents here are often called ‘Western forces’ and therefore foreign too much, when Chinese journalists suf- upon to make difficult choices. When journalists, too.” fer so much more than we do. the pendulum swings toward a Still, we are far more protected than Oftentimes, it seems our Chinese colleagues, who there is no comfortable are frequently subjected to middle ground for foreign “The current climate is chillier lengthy detentions or criminal correspondents in China. charges. China leads the world Even as nationalistic youth for foreign correspondents in the number of journalists it build anti-foreign media has jailed, but foreign reporters websites, petitioners with than during the Olympics.” who have ticked off the regime nothing left to lose look to are typically just tossed out. foreign journalists as their –Jocelyn Ford In fact, it has been more only hope to getting justice. than a decade since the It creates a situation last time China kicked a that can be at once exhilarating and crackdown on Chinese dissent, as it has credentialed foreign journalist out of the depressing. One longtime correspondent in the beginning of 2011, the first people country. said, “We’re not supposed to feel anxious caught in the tightening noose are often Today, the People’s Republic of like this. It’s not like we’re covering a foreign correspondents. China uses far more sophisticated and war.” Laura Daverio, a longtime Italian potentially effective means to manage She, of course, did not want her correspondent in China, said she its message and control who gets name used. Speaking ill of the reporting believes the situation is generally getting permission to work as a reporter here in situation in China can lead to complaints better, but setbacks like this year’s can be the first place. Lengthy visa delays and from all sides and potential problems difficult to navigate. nonanswers have grown increasingly down the road. In other words, China’s “For nonsensitive stories, I believe common in recent years, while pressure

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|CHINA | KATHLEEN E. MCLAUGHLIN |

remains constant on the sources, squarely on Egypt, Libya and elsewhere became an issue. Late last year, during employees and associates of foreign — where journalists were being killed, the six-week period during which every correspondents — all Chinese nationals tortured and assaulted. China, it seems journalist in China has to renew his or who associate themselves with non- in the eyes of the world, has evolved her visa, all board members of the FCCC Chinese journalists. beyond needing as much attention. were asked about their involvement and This strange, uncomfortable back-and- But the fact is, China may have rolled warned against taking part in illegal forth came to a head, once again, this back its own reporting regulations this activities. Several, myself included, had February, when unknown online forces year without drawing much attention. visa renewals delayed. The message? Stop called for Jasmine Revolution in China, The question on the minds of reporters complaining about reporting conditions hoping to capitalize upon the success of now: Is this just another passing phase or in China and stick to social functions. uprisings in the Arab world. However, are we working again in a climate where small protests that materialized in mid- authorities can interfere at will? iven that the message is often February in Beijing and Shanghai were “The current climate is chillier for Gcoming not just from the Chinese crushed swiftly and efficiently by the foreign correspondents than during the government but also from employers country’s massive security apparatus. Olympics,” said Jocelyn Ford, a longtime and even critics of the regime, what’s a Yet again, foreign journalists were U.S. radio correspondent. “During the journalist in China to do? Ford suggests caught up in the middle. Following Olympics China was trying to make a emulating Google, which went public the first Sunday of protests, police in positive PR splash around the world.” last year when it decided to stop censor- Beijing began calling individual foreign “The population, for the most part, ing search results here after a hacking correspondents and warning them supported the Olympics and was proud attack. not to attend any protests and to stay of their government’s achievements,” “In an ideal world, competing away from certain parts of the city. Of said Ford. “Media restrictions were international information companies course, to journalists, this was a veritable more about saving face and suppressing would band together and speak out invitation. known sources of dissidence. The when they come under pressure to Olympic media controls were imposed suppress information or self-censor,” nder a change in law made, in for a short-term goal.” said Ford. “At the very least, they Upart, so China could win the 2008 Ford has been active in the Foreign should follow Google’s lead and be Olympics, foreign correspondents have Correspondents’ Club of China public with the information they refrain the right to travel freely anywhere in for several years. The FCCC’s own from publishing, be it in English or the country, needing only consent of an experience is a good illustration of Chinese, or stories they decide not to interviewee to conduct reporting. the way things work in China. (Full pursue due to pressure.”  More than 100 foreign disclosure: I’m on the FCCC board and correspondents showed up at the head of its media freedoms committee.) Kathy McLaughlin is a Oriental Malls in the center of town that The FCCC is technically illegal in China, freelance journalist and Sunday, walking, watching and waiting because there is no mechanism by which the Global Post’s senior for any signs of Chinese protests. There we can register. Up until just a few correspondent for China, were none. years ago, the American Chamber of Instead, the massive security Commerce in China was in exactly the based in Bejing. She has lived presence began turning on journalists, same boat but managed to negotiate a in China for the past decade. dragging several away off the main way to legalize. The streets into detention and beating up FCCC never did, at least three, including one severely. but it was never a The BBC complained vociferously real problem — in and published video clips of its own years past, officials incidents, as did CNN. Others who had from the Ministry trouble made different decisions and did of Foreign Affairs not go entirely public with the details. came to the club’s In other words, pressure from China to Christmas party. keep silent does work. But when China Some international outcry followed, began tightening up with statements from the U.S. govern- on criticism in the ment and the European Union. But past two years, the the world’s attention remained focused FCCC’s legal status

32 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 34 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting Q&A | BY JOE PAVLISH | Lessons on foreign reporting Marcus Brauchli, executive editor, The Washington Post

(Editor’s Note: Brauchli spent much of his that’s widely overlooked — there are career as a foreign correspondent for The Wall more foreign correspondents today; Street Journal. He was based in Hong Kong, there are more correspondents in Stockholm, Tokyo and Shanghai.) the world reporting information at a more granular level today than What did you love and hate there have ever been in the past. The as a foreign correspondent? volume and quality of information coming to interested readers is far I think the opportunity to see so better than it’s ever been. That is much of how the rest of the world oper- because countries have opened up, ates is always fascinating, and it’s kind of the global economy has integrated an adventure to be in a place where you more tightly, the ability to commu- don’t know what’s going to happen every nicate and to travel is superior to day. In part because you maybe don’t what it’s ever been and the fact that know the culture, are new to a country the economy and the markets are so or place or may not speak the language. much more global means that there It’s kind of exhilarating to be in a place is great demand for information in where you’re constantly being challenged one part of the world about another like that. I think that Americans in part of the world. … general don’t have a deep enough un- I think that the level of informa- derstanding of how the rest of the world tion that’s available in the world to- works or thinks, and the chance to be day is better than it’s ever been. The able to try to understand the world and quality of journalism in the world convey that understanding back is really is actually quite high, the quality of in- extraordinary. ternational correspondents. … I think the world has changed and the kind of Either seeing the world a bit from a information people want and the kind of How is the United States Washington prism, not entirely, but at information that’s available is superior to least trying to write about things in a doing in reporting foreign what existed before. journalism? way that makes sense for an audience in Washington that would include I think the number of people in the What if you don’t have a policymakers and legislators and the U.S. who deal with the rest of the world foreign correspondent in World Bank and the [International is increasing, and the U.S. does have a an important country? Monetary Fund] and the people working fairly sophisticated understanding of the Pentagon or federal agencies in the world. As a government, we have a Our approach to covering the world Washington but also for people who pretty sophisticated understanding of the is not the same as AP or Reuters or come wanting to understand what is world. It’s impossible for the U.S. not to Bloomberg, who think they have to important in Washington. pay attention to the world because the cover basically everything that moves. We can’t cover everything, but we U.S. gets pulled into almost anything in Our view is: We’re not going to be a don’t think we have to cover everything. the world by virtue of its status as what paper of record; we’re not going to cover … We’re looking for stories that will, Madeleine Albright, I think, called the everything that happens. We’re going to as much as possible, anticipate the “essential power.” try and identify those stories that matter news rather than simply report what So, in terms of how I see foreign cor- most to our audience. We know that our happened in the news. … respondents today in comparison to the audience comes to us expecting us to We spend a lot of time trying to past, the truth is — and this is something be authoritative on things Washington. anticipate and address larger questions

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| BRAUCHLI Q & A | JOE PAVLISH |

to give people more context and un- Japan is going to be able to maintain its that will be compelling and engaging so derstanding, and we worry a little bit economy and whether the government that our audience will learn about issues less about covering minute-to-minute is able to respond to a crisis like this. It and places and subjects that they don’t developments because we think we can goes to whether the government itself know about. get a lot of that from news services and, is going to be able to survive or perhaps So perhaps what I’m saying is that frankly, we think a lot of people follow even if their system or approach to gov- American journalism probably would be that online or on television in a way that ernment is going to survive. slightly better served if it was a bit more we’re not going to necessarily bring any There are a lot of really large ques- adventurous in what it covered and if it value to it. tions that come into play very quickly didn’t so often just move in a pack in the So we focus on our journalism in a that do have big implications for the U.S. same direction. way that we think we can bring more and the rest of the world, and so we try understanding rather than just bringing to get on that. … It has a lot of dimen- back the same facts that everybody else sions that immediately matter to us and How has globalization is delivering. to our readers so we put more people on affected foreign reporting? that story. Well there are certain advantages in So the calculus every time is: Do How do you determine being able to see what everybody else we have something to add, how essen- is writing. I mean, if something hap- what aspects of a story tial and relevant is this to our readers pens during the uprisings recently in to know and then what do we have to you should cover? the Middle East and North Africa, I contribute to it to make it a broader, found myself often watching Al-Jazeera’s For example, an earthquake strikes more ambitious and essential story for English-language streaming video Christchurch, New Zealand. Devastating our readers? earthquake. A large number of people website, which was great. I mean, it was are killed; it’s a national tragedy in New really interesting and took you there in a Zealand. I don’t think we would have How would you improve way that CNN and MSNBC and broad- seen any real reason to send a corre- U.S. foreign reporting? cast networks in this country just didn’t spondent to that because there was no — just much more detailed and granular obvious way in which we were going to I think if you actually had the time journalism. add any value, and there were no longer to look at all the foreign coverage that What the Internet has done though effects of that earthquake outside of New appears every day in American media is it has also torn down a lot of the walls Zealand, as tragic as it was. outlets, you would find that it’s pretty that protected newspapers or other By contrast, when the earthquake robust. The challenge remains telling news organizations because they served and tsunami hit Japan, we understood people about things they don’t know a community and that community had immediately this was, first of all, a much about, not just doing your version of only access to what information the larger tragedy, both in terms of loss of what everybody else is doing. community news organization was life and economic damage. This is true of all journalism, not just providing it. Today, if your local paper But Japan is a country that is a close international coverage. I think too much doesn’t cover international news well but U.S. ally, the third largest economy in the of journalism remains a sort of “me you’re interested in the world, it doesn’t world — or by some counts the second too” enterprise, where everybody is sort matter to you. You can find plenty of largest economy in the world still — and of traveling in a pack and covering the international news that you could never this was going to be a highly disrup- same story and delivering their version have found before. tive event for the economy. It was going of it. That to me is somewhat unneces- That sort of raises the challenge for to require interesting responses of a sary because, as we all know now, it’s all all of us: How do we ensure that we re- Japanese government that has been chal- visible to all of us and there’s probably main the primary providers of news and lenged in recent years and has not been a greater advantage in doing not just your information to our core audiences? That strong government in recent decades. version of the same story everybody requires much more awareness of what And then overlaid on top of that very else is doing, unless you truly can add the competitive landscape is and much quickly was this nuclear power plant something significant and some real closer focus on what it is that we know debacle, and again we saw that as some- value to it. and have and can produce that they thing that does have a lot of repercus- But in finding stories that people won’t get elsewhere.  sions for the rest of the world because aren’t aware of and telling people things For an extended interview it goes directly to the question whether that they need to know but they don’t nuclear power is safe and sustainable. know and in bringing places and people with Marcus Brauchli visit: Again it goes to the question of whether and things to light and to life in a way www.mjrmag.com.

34 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 36 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

| BY HENRIETTE LÖWISCH |

How to break into international reporting today: Pack your bags and go

hen Swedish anthropolo- trade publications to the websites of I got my break because, after gist Ulf Hannerz (“Foreign nongovernmental organizations and graduation, I joined the German service News: Exploring the World English-language media around the of AFP, a subsidiary of the Paris-based ofW Foreign Correspondents”) asked Bill globe. news agency that was undergoing a Keller, now executive editor of The New “Before you go out, meet as many relaunch, clearly on its way up. (And York Times, what he was looking for in people as possible,” Jamie Tarabay, a yes, they only hired me because I spoke recruits when he served as foreign editor NPR correspondent of Lebanese heritage French.) of his paper in the second half of the told veteran foreign reporter Mort I started out as a lowly copy editor 1990s, Keller said that he would want Rosenblum in an interview for “Little on the foreign desk. Two years later, I to fill an opening with someone who Bunch of Madmen,” his 2010 book on was dispatched to the Brussels bureau, was adaptable, open-minded, willing to global reporting. “Go to networks, talk to cover NATO and the European endure inconveniences and able to talk to foreign editors. Of course, they won’t Union. Another three years later, I himself through a military checkpoint. give you a job. If you are going there on became the first German-language AFP Today, for those contemplating a faith, they’re not going to pay you. But correspondent in the United States. career in international reporting, Besides working for a news it is equally important to develop a organization that was expanding its personal brand: a way to distinguish “For those contemplating network of foreign correspondents, yourself, whether by cultural I was chosen for what my bosses background, expert knowledge in a a career in international considered an accurate sense of particular field or a combination of what German audiences wanted and writing and multimedia skills. reporting, it is equally needed to learn about the United For your first freelance reporting States. mission, don’t pick a place that’s important to develop a Journalism, after all, is not already saturated by foreign personal brand.” about what writers, photographers coverage; pick a place that is likely or broadcasters want out of life. to become relevant in the future Readers, viewers and listeners are and get there early. Start covering India at least when they see your email they’re the ones who matter. before it becomes the world’s third not going to delete it.” International reporting never has largest economy (now predicted for Identify Web publications that have been, and never will be, the right career 2032). the potential to become profitable for those mainly interested in their own Settle down for a while, establish and thus able to pay for stories in the comfort. Foreign correspondence is an a hub, get to know the people and foreseeable future. Instead of bemoaning exercise in humility. then explore the region, recommends the decline of the regional newspaper, But in a time when the media University of Montana alum Jacob invest in relationships with news industry is changing, with few well-paid Baynham, who recently told UM organizations that are on their way up. positions available for rookie reporters journalism students about his reporting When I told a panel of journalists in your home state, you might as well mission to Burma and Thailand in 2007. selecting students for Deutsche take your savings, pack your bags and “I found sheer perseverance goes a Journalistenschule, my alma mater in go.  long way,” he said. Munich, that my life goal was to become Preparation for an international a foreign correspondent, I earned Henriette Löwisch teaches at reporting mission goes far beyond condescending chuckles. the UM School of Journalism packing for an adventure trip. It was 1986, and back then, foreign Budding freelancers need to sound correspondence was the domain of and heads its graduate out potential publishing venues and mostly male veteran journalists who program. She was a foreign sources of funding, from their local crowned their careers with a posting in correspondent for Agence paper to charitable foundations, from Paris, London or Washington, D.C. France-Presse.

www.mjrmag.com 35 Published by ScholarWorks at University of Montana, 2015 37 Montana Journalism Review, Vol. 1 [2015], Iss. 40, Art. 1 BEYOND CONFLICT: Reporting sanely in occupied Palestine

Story & photos by Brendan Work that journalists can and should fix, not counted, but between books, articles perhaps as a model for the occupation and propaganda leaflets of all languages srael-Palestine is where seven of that they cannot and should not. I have it must nearly double that of the next the eight news values go to die, spent six months doing my small part as most notorious hot spot (if United and the eighth feeds happily on the a reporter and translator of the Palestine Nations Security Council resolutions Icarcasses. If that seems an unnecessarily News Network (PNN), a shoestring are a reliable indicator, Israel-Palestine cynical way to begin, consider the ugly independent agency that works out of accounts for one-third of the global advantage “conflict” has had over its the basement of a hotel in Bethlehem, conflict interest). siblings “proximity” or “entertainment,” in the West Bank, and I can say it’s not A journalist who can parse and especially “currency,” in the 63-year easy. But here is an optimistic note to information well, discriminate between history of reporting here. No story gets readers and writers of Israel-Palestine sources, and read Arabic and Hebrew is in or out without running a hackneyed news and information: It is possible to still likely to be swamped. So of course interpretation gauntlet — what is the engage Israel-Palestine without getting the intrepid learner should be prepared Palestinian view? What is Israeli view? bored, depressed or otherwise less likely to read long books, watch documentaries — so by the time the consumer comes to engage with Israel-Palestine. and memorize dates — but it’s my across it, any human interest or novelty The first step is learning. Like any assertion that he or she should do in the story is essentially left for dead, story, this one is 90 percent homework, none of this tirelessly, for two reasons. blotted out by an enormous “vs.” in the the only difference here being that One, homework fatigue begets the far center of the page. there’s 90 percent more homework more dangerous condition of conflict It is, appropriately, an occupation. than before. The yearly production of fatigue, burden of predictable cynics and It’s the kind of occupation, however, literature produced on Israel-Palestine is ideological freaks everywhere; and two,

36 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 38 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

like much homework, it may not even matter.

he second step is forgetting. Diligent Thistorians will always and obviously be valued more highly than bright- eyed newcomers. But the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and the release of the Palestine Papers, twin reminders to question the conventional trajectory of events, prove that no one in the Middle East has so firm a grip on the narratives as to make them boring. When a dictatorship can topple in a week, the dictator’s biography is liable to fall out of the Middle East Relevant Reading List as quickly as breaking news coverage climbs into it. Political fluidity challenges us to be flexible with our sources and here is not to reinforce the fact that a dedicated reporter in the Palestinian seek out new perspectives, some of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be territories. “Reporting from Palestine,” which contradict reliable wisdom. hateful but to reinforce the fact that in other words, still sounds like activism This two-step has led me into firsthand experience adds nuance to the or war journalism, neither of which can olive groves, refugee camps, armed learned narratives — in this case, the accurately address the complex social settlements and at least one bagpipe nuance being that the conflict is both and religious problems of the Palestinian training camp, down to the grotto where incongruous with traditional religious people. Jesus was born, in and out of a tear gas dichotomies and still turns on classic cloud and back to the office. It requires interreligious ignorance. utside of Al-Jazeera, Arab concentration, but in the end it renews Rescuing equitable news coverage Ojournalism is still a world of faith in the idea that primary reporting, from Israel-Palestine demands this state media and broke freelancers, in being always rarer and more precious appreciation of nuance, something which the former make up what they than secondhand analysis, can help mainstream coverage has been starved of like — during the beginning Egyptian people understand and solve conflicts. in the last 60 years. It is no longer up for revolution the daily Al-Ahram reported serious debate that the American media that people in the streets were handing y own pet quest — to lend a hand gives implicit support of Israel. out chocolates and roses to the police, Mto “human interest” and the other Even the standard bearers while in Palestine, the state-run Wafa scavenged Israeli-Palestinian news of American journalism exhibit news wire freely called the Al-Jazeera- values — draws heavily on this faith. embarrassing blindness —The New York leaked Palestine Papers “incitement” Living in a largely Christian community Times’ top Jerusalem correspondent, and “slanderous lies” — and the latter in the southern West Bank, for example, Ethan Bronner, is the father of an Israeli get arrested. Six months of translating ensures that I deal with religion the way soldier and the next best writer, Isabel reports for PNN has left me clawing for I see it rather than with the Muslims- Kershner, is an Israeli citizen; Fairness the baseline: at least two quotes, please and-Jews cookie cutter favored by many and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has mention the principal source’s name outside observers. repeatedly criticized NPR for failing to and don’t steal from Wikipedia. But Similarly, a functioning knowledge report Palestinian deaths or mention whereas Arabs love a poet, they loathe of Arabic lets me hear the words the illegality of Israeli settlements. The a sneak. Investigative journalists and that don’t feature in most articles: gaps that these journalistic stalwarts whistleblowers have too often fallen A Christian Arab child pointing at leave are filled by small, underfunded in with the spies and collaborators, approaching Israeli jeeps will not yell press houses or tilted blogs. There is making it easier to earn a respectable “Israelis,” he’ll yell “Jews.” The point no major American news source with living as a barber than as a reporter. A

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|BEYOND CONFLICT | BRENDAN WORK |

recent poll claimed 68 percent of Palestinians simply don’t believe the Palestine Papers are real — further evidence that for all its modernization, this is still an old land populated exclusively by the trustworthy and murderous and Searching for Daniel Pearl’s killer no one in between.

he good news is that peace Tand democratization are more likely to encourage journalistic maturation: It will be significantly harder to dismiss a leak like the Palestine Papers, for example, as Zionist and colonialist aggression when actual Zionist and colonialist aggression seems further away. In the meantime, international journalists should take Palestinian stories seriously and local journalists, too, should report them from fresh angles. There is no doubt that Israel-Palestine remains a conflict zone and deserves objective coverage through a conflict lens. It is also a story that Americans can and will find timely, entertaining and touching. Most importantly, it is a story that need not and must not be boring. As Palestinians will grimly explain, the worst part of the occupation is the day it becomes ordinary. This story has been ordinary for too long. When news readers and writers forget the established norms of Israel- Palestine journalism, the end of at least one occupation is not far off. 

Brendan Work hopes to make a career at the intersection of journalism and Arabic. He just finished a stint at Palestine News Network in Bethlehem.

38 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 40 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

| BY COLETTE MADDOCK | THE PEARL PROJECT Searching for Daniel Pearl’s killer

aniel Pearl, a foreign correspon- news and the easy stuff that our citizens einman Todd became interested dent for The Wall Street Journal, won’t be well informed or able to make Fin the Pearl Project when she was was abducted and murdered in good decisions,” she said. reaching out to minority trade groups PakistanD in 2002. His death was marked Foreign news coverage is being and journalism groups to try to get more by millions of people across the world drastically cut down at many students of color and different ethnicities and inspired a class at Georgetown Uni- mainstream publications. “Who’s going involved in journalism. A mutual versity to investigate and report on the to do the foreign news coverage if all of contact brought her to Nomani because truth behind his murder. these traditional newspapers are being of her connection within the south The Pearl Project was started by downsized and if the TV stations are Asian journalism community. After Asra Nomani, a colleague of Pearl’s getting rid of their foreign news bureaus corresponding with each other, Feinman who was with him in Pakistan before Todd offered Nomani a job teaching at his abduction, and Barbara Feinman Georgetown, to which she reluctantly Todd, who was at that time the associate agreed. dean of journalism in the School of “The project inspired The product of their collaboration Continuing Studies at Georgetown was more than they had both hoped for. University. a new way of Feinman Todd says she wishes that The duo created a seminar class that the project hadn’t taken so long but said was modeled after the Arizona Project, teaching foreign it was eventually completed because they in which U.S. reporters joined to find had the time and support they needed. the 1976 killers of reporter Don Bolles and investigative Georgetown University provided the stu- and to continue his investigative work. It dents and teachers, the Center for Public was designed to give students a hands- journalism.” Integrity provided the resources that on opportunity to practice real-world the university didn’t have — like libel investigative journalism while at the lawyers — and the Ethics and Excellence same time uncovering the truth behind because of the expense?” Feinman Todd in Journalism Foundation provided the Pearl’s abduction and eventual murder. wonders. funding that they needed to complete She and Nomani think that the the project. ine years after Pearl was killed, the answer lies in classes like the Pearl Nproject is complete. The Pearl Proj- Project that educate students in the best he three-credit class took up much ect identified 27 men who were involved practices of reporting, and at the same Tof the students’ time, and Feinman in his murder; at least 14 of those men time provide the public with valuable Todd acknowledged that the students are still thought to be free. The project journalism that takes a lot of time, put forth much more effort than would inspired a new way of teaching foreign patience and resources. have been required for another class and investigative journalism, immersing “It really shows us potential, and worth the same amount of credit. students in a real-life newsroom setting, it’s also a window into the difficulties But students also got more out of while at the same time doing a service to and challenges,” Nomani said of the the seminar than they did from other the public. Pearl Project as a model for future classes. Feinman Todd emphasized the investigative reporting seminar classes. “I think working on something that importance for journalism students to “I think we owe it to our world to was bigger than themselves, that was practice journalism that really matters. keep investigative journalism alive. It’s a more than just increasing their GPA or “What I worry about just for the future check on powers and an accountability learning how to write a lede, rather than of our country is that if there’s too much that our world really needs,” Nomani learning one isolated thing or having it of an emphasis on the sort of celebrity said. look good on your resume. It was more

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than an academic exercise; it really, really sources in coffee shops,” she said. It was to Pakistani officials to pursue those men mattered,” Feinman Todd said. hard for the class to know who to trust, and the U.S. to encourage them to,” she The students agree. “Unlike other especially when they were thousands of said about what the countries should do classes, where you learn facts or theories miles away, making phone calls in the in the face of the 14 men who have yet to and are tested on your ability to recollect middle of the night, in Washington, D.C. be charged. and analyze them, the Pearl Project Problems weren’t limited to physical Through their work on the Pearl taught me about life itself and my role in problems, though. The investigation Project, Nomani and Feinman Todd it,” said student Margo Humphries. involved uncovering layers of have created a permanent project The students and teachers working information, and oftentimes finding that at Georgetown that investigates the on the Pearl Project had to overcome the they had been misled, backpedaling and murders of various journalists around dual challenges that face both foreign starting again. Particularly challenging the world. During the fall 2010 semester, reporters and college students. “I’m pic- were the names. “We started with the the class covered the Democratic turing the students sleeping on the floor names of four men who were convicted Republic of Congo, and in spring of our offices so they could call Pakistan and the rest was just alphabet soup of 2011 they are covering the murders of at the right time,” she said. aliases and initials and crazy monikers,” journalists in Iraq. Feinman Todd remembers she Nomani said. She credits having 32 Pearl Project student Kira Zazlan worried about students being able to people looking at the case from various said, “I was part of something that I emotionally and psychologically handle angles to their eventual understanding of believe is incredibly important: a fight the daily stress and trauma that went the identities of those involved in Pearl’s to get the inconvenient truth on record, along with confronting the atrocities that abduction and murder. and the statement that crimes against were carried out by Pearl’s captors. While the class implicated 27 journalists will not go unnoticed.”  different men involved in the case, there omani recognized the challenges is a sense of uncertainty about what Nassociated with being thousands the outcome of the information will be. of miles away from the epicenter of the Nomani acknowledged that traditionally Q & A with the students of the investigation: Karachi, Pakistan. “Ideally journalists report the truth and then Pearl Project can be found we’d be knocking on doors and meeting leave things to higher authorities. “It’s up online at www.mjrmag.com.

Quarterbacks, from p. 30

Last year, Maese’s good stories often He wrote from Chico Harlan’s office/ five minutes ago? – walked into an involved Clinton Portis, the eccentric apartment in Tokyo. Harlan was a Post Albuquerque newsroom knowing what Redskins running back. Now, he drove sportswriter covering the Nationals he wanted. Now he’s back in the Post toward a real catastrophe. before taking an assignment as the sports department. “About to turn phone off again.” paper’s man in Southeast Asia. “Besides “Looking for features,” he said. Another tweet. “Driving through the taxi,” Maese said, “the other scary And sounding happy.  Fukushima, which is as close as Ill come moments were in Chico’s place. He’s on to the nuke plant. Gonna hold breath for the 32nd floor. Each aftershock made next 60 min.” the building sway. We didn’t get much of After his feature on survivors, Maese that in New Mexico, and I’m wondering, returned to Tokyo and for a couple days ‘Is the building going to stop swaying?’” wrote the Post’s front-page story on Erin Cox flew home first. Dave Kindred’s latest book, conditions in Japan. He wrote for print Two days later, a Maese tweet: “At the “Morning Miracle,” is an from 4:30 to 6 a.m., slept some, then airport in Tokyo, heading back to DC. inside-the-newsroom account I appreciate all kind words and well- wrote in the night for the paper’s website. of two years in the life of The deadline writing at both ends wishes. I really hope the situation here of the day was nothing new for a gets better soon.” The Washington Post. Now sportswriter. Maese said, “And we jump He had done above-the-fold stories a contributing writer at Golf from topic to topic, from basketball to on a once-in-a-lifetime news event. He Digest, Kindred is a Red Smith football, accumulating new information, had shared a Washington Post by-line Award winner and member with his wife. She had made it home digesting it, and trying to write it in a of the National Sportscasters thoughtful, insightful way. Almost every safely, and so would he, just in time for day, it’s a different topic. This time the a surprise party planned for her 30th and Sportswriters Association topic happened to be nuclear disaster.” birthday. All good for a guy who – what, Hall of Fame.

40 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 42 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting | BY FRANK SMYTH | Practicing journalism in a smaller, riskier world

and they have revolutionized the world America, journalists routinely wrote TV ’m old enough to have handled of news and information. The craft of in large letters in masking tape on their moveable type long, rectangular — journalism is the same: attempting to vehicles to help deter attacks. Today few pieces of steel or lead with a letter, verify information before reporting it, journalists would be so bold to do so in Icharacter, number, punctuation mark being transparent about what could and almost any region of the world. or space forged at one end. In 1976, at could not be verified, and providing con- 15, I had a part-time job as a letterpress text. But many other things are different. any journalists in the past also clerk at my hometown weekly. I worked Technology has made the impact of Moperated with the sense that they the metal pieces of type into clamped reporting and other communications were journalists first. But in recent years blocks to fit into a letterpress machine. It more immediate. Earlier this year, many journalists have been targeted sat in the basement near the newer, because of their nationality, ethnic- bigger printing presses that inked ity or religion. Everyone knows the the newspaper. My old machine was case of then-Wall Street Journal about 5 feet tall and weighed maybe “A local journalist is correspondent Daniel Pearl. But a ton. Each time I pulled down its Western journalists comprise only handle, it inked out onto an enve- murdered somewhere a relative handful of all journalists lope the mailing address of a college killed anywhere around the world. student or someone else who still around the world at least Atwar Bahjat was an Iraqi corre- wanted to read the town paper even spondent for Al-Jazeera and later though they lived out of town. once every 11 days.” Al-Arabiya, based in Doha and I’m young enough to have never Dubai, respectively. In 2006, Bahjat used anything but a computer to and her TV crew were reporting file from overseas. Nearly every foreign Egyptian police and militia detained or at a major Shiite shrine right after it was correspondent by 1988 used a Tandy attacked foreign correspondents from bombed. Gunmen in a white car arrived 200 from Radio Shack. A laptop before every conceivable outlet. Before he on the scene demanding to know the anybody coined the term. It had no hard fell, President Hosni Mubarak tried to whereabouts of the on-air correspon- drive and only 24 kilobytes of RAM — literally unplug Egypt, shutting down dent. Her remains and those of two just enough to save one story at a time. satellite connections, cell phone service crewmembers were found the following There was no Internet. The Tandys had and the Internet. Back in the 1960s it day bearing signs of torture. a built-in modem with settings for pulse took at least a few days for film shot One’s nationality, in particular, can or tone that we used to direct dial a in Vietnam to be flown to New York, be a two-way street. Stephen Farrell is newspaper’s mainframe computer. Pulse developed and broadcasted. Now what a British national working for The New was about the only setting that worked may be a fresh report to the public back York Times. In 2009 he and an Afghan abroad. You had to pay out of pocket home also may serve as a real-time journalist working as his fixer, Sultan and hope to get reimbursed later for long intelligence report to combatants. Munadi, were captured by Taliban distance calls, and you had to exactly The public perception of journalists combatants. (Hostage takers, too, match the settings of stop bits, character has changed, too. At home Americans have learned how to Google to glean bits and parity each time to connect. have steadily lost respect for journalists information about their captors.) British over the past quarter century. Little authorities told Farrell’s family members rinting presses inked out text in more than a quarter of Americans and New York Times editors that they Pdifferent written languages for more say news organizations get their facts were weighing options before ordering than 1,000 years and, in more recent right, and about 60 percent say they British special forces to mount a surprise centuries, gave rise to the term we still are biased. Overseas actors of all kinds rescue operation. U.K. authorities said use for news outlets: the press. Comput- have grown increasingly hostile to they did so to try and save the one ers have been around for about 30 years, journalists. Back in the 1980s in Central British national. U.K. soldiers rescued

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16 journalists killed in 2011 861 journalists killed since 1992 145 journalists in prison worldwide statistics from www.cpj.org

British national. U.K. soldiers rescued to research by the New York-based killed 16 journalists among them. Farrell but the Afghan journalist Munadi Committee to Protect Journalists, from That figure also includes two Iraqi was killed along with an Afghan woman which other data here not otherwise photojournalists working for Reuters and one British soldier. This and other attributed is taken. who were killed in a helicopter attack cases show how increasingly hard it is In closed societies or nations run firing in an area that included armed for journalists to maintain that they are by a single political party or another men. The U.S. military’s own video of journalists first anymore. absolute entity, outright censorship and the attack later surfaced on the anti- But one thing has stayed the same. imprisonment of journalists is common. secrecy information network WikiLeaks. Local journalists continue to be, and Iran, China, Eritrea and Burma The video showed the helicopter killing have long been, the journalists most at each top the latest list with the most or critically injuring other civilians, risk. Nearly 90 percent of journalists journalists in jail. About half of them including children. killed around the world are killed within are behind bars on anti-state charges Sexual assaults and rapes of female the borders of their own nation. The like terrorist collaboration, espionage or journalists are another concern Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya propagandizing against the state. recently brought to light. The sustained repeatedly exposed human rights sexual assault of CBS Chief Foreign abuses before she was shot to death Correspondent Lara Logan in Cairo in the elevator of her apartment following anti-government protests in building. The Sri Lankan journalist “But one thing has stayed Egypt shocked many observers, but Lasantha Wickramatunga criticized some were less surprised. his own government and foretold the same. Local journalists Women who are veteran journalists his own death before eight helmeted came forward one after another men on four motorcycles beat him continue to be, and have detailing their own experiences with with iron bars and wooden poles. He long been, the journalists groping and more severe sexual assaults died a few hours later. by crowds of men in different nations. most at risk.” Technology has no doubt made the onsider these two rarely world a smaller place. But it is one at Creported facts: A local journalist least as dangerous, if not more so, than is murdered somewhere around the Two more trends reflect other new before. “Why then do we do it?” asked world at least once every 11 days; the changes in news and information. More Sri Lanka’s Wickramatunga, a husband murderers get away with it in nearly online journalists are behind bars today and a father of three children, shortly nine out of 10 cases. Journalists tend than either print or broadcast journalists, before his own murder. “But there is a to be violently attacked in open states and nearly half of all the journalists calling,” he answered, “that is yet above or nations that are at least nominally languishing in jails around the world are high office, fame, lucre and security. It is democratic. They include Iraq, the also freelancers. the call of conscience.”  Philippines, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Frank Smyth is a freelance Afghanistan, Nepal, Russia, Mexico, t the same time, wars remain journalist and the journalist Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. Adangerous beats to cover. Many security coordinator of Here’s another underreported statistic: journalists have been killed or injured on the Committee to Protect Government officials of one kind or the battlefield. More than 200 journalists Journalists. Smyth’s clips are at another have killed nearly as many and media workers have been killed in journalists as have terrorist groups and Iraq alone since the U.S.-led invasion www.franksmyth.com. other armed rebel forces, according in 2003. Fire from U.S. military forces Visit CPJ at www.cpj.org.

42 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 44 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

REVOLUTIONS CITIZEN JOURNALISM& statistics from www.cpj.org

By Mark Fonseca Rendeiro

CNN’s Anderson Cooper up–to-the minute reports via Twitter, reporters not only appear on television Facebook, and personal blogs from with the typical two-minute on-the- standing in Cairo’s Tahrir Japanese and expat citizen journalists scene reports, they also tweet and blog Square during the Egyptian on the ground using whatever Internet as the day goes on and events unfold and communication tools they could around them. revolution didn’t bring me manage. It is fashionable at this moment in the details of how and why In such a crisis, the kinds of images history to talk about social networking and information that the news helicopter and citizen journalism and how it has these events were or a well funded correspondent dropped changed the world. When you phrase unfolding. into the scene provides can also be very it right it sounds like the plot to what important. Citizen journalists have not will one day be an Oscar-nominated I had @ramyraoof and @Gsquare86, replaced or made mainstream media film. The truth is, citizen journalists two Egyptian citizen journalists who journalists useless. In fact, a glance can’t change the world on their own, were in the crowd reporting and at where many citizen journalists get but long before Ben Ali fled Tunisia, or participating in the protests every day. their information, or how mainstream Sully landed in the Hudson river, citizen No, they didn’t claim to be neutral as media looks to citizen journalists would journalists were out there with limited some journalists in the past may have reveal that these two rely on each other funds and limited recognition, reporting claimed; instead they openly stated they extensively. Political columnists in the in a manner that the mainstream media are participants, and then went on to United States still call political bloggers cannot. provide first hand observation, photos, for details and a useful perspective into In the early days of citizen journalism and video on a constant basis. what is happening and what the public most of us were lost in the wilderness. When the massive earthquake, is saying. Demonstrators assembling Blogging was seen as some kind of anti- tsunami and subsequent nuclear near Bahrain’s now-destroyed Pearl social emo-nerd activity. Nothing but emergencies struck Japan in early Roundabout still hope their video will people wanting to sit in their pajamas, March, I didn’t have to wait for Fox be passed on and perhaps used by a criticize everything, and never have to News to figure out what was going on major media outlet, in an effort to reach face anyone in person. Trying to present and dispatch a correspondent. I had as many people as possible. Al-Jazeera yourself to someone as a journalist while

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handing them a card with your website Then there was the rise of mobile and sive than messages that filled our already printed in bold letters brought with it the self-publishing tools, such as blogger. overworked inboxes. risk of the awkward “Oh, that’s nice” or com. While many citizen journalists New options keep emerging and “My niece has a blog too.” were discovering blogging software and citizen journalists keep finding ways to Along the way many things changed, the benefits for their work, broadband make use of them for communication all of them leading to a new era for the Internet was entering people’s homes. and publishing. For example, while citizen journalist. For the first time video and audio would many were using Paypal to buy or auc- become easier to access and publish. tion things online, independent media irst came the collapse of corporate When you add to that the growing prev- producers were using Paypal as a way for Fmedia conglomerates. By the late alence and declining cost of mp3 players, the audience to donate to them directly. 1990’s a handful of media conglomerates video cameras, and portable devices for An old idea of listener supported media owned virtually all of the mainstream browsing the web, it was the beginning now applies to an online platform. media outlets that people looked to for of a golden era for anyone who wanted Social bookmarking tools for not information. Not only were there only a to create content online — journalism only gathering information but sharing few media companies, often it with friends and interested these organizations bought up parties became a constant in the the competition and made it world of independent online seem like people had a choice “The competition between reporting. Unlike the tradition- between one channel or an- al media that only showed the other. big and small media finished product, it was stan- As they acquired more dard practice to not only share outlets, they would carry out producers also means a what sources citizen journalists a systematic dismantling of were looking at, but audience competitors by cutting staff struggle for each to survive.” members could also find and and costs. Reporters who did recommend their own sources. survive were required to “do This type of symbiotic relation- more with less,” to appear local while students, concerned citizens and critical ship where the audience was now part of covering as many desks as possible. observers in many parts of the world. the content creation was one that only The goal became to consolidate the There was also a growing list of on- years later the big media corporations production and reporting side while still line tools such as feed readers that would would spend time and money trying putting out what appears to be a quality pull in updates directly from blogs or to replicate. CNN’s and BBC’s initia- and authoritative news report. any news site with an RSS feed. While tives asking viewers to submit their own This also led to the rise of freelancers most of the world to this day doesn’t videos or join the discussion on their and part-timers, as journalists grasped know what RSS stands for (Really Simple websites came years after the pioneer- for whatever work they could get Syndication), many make use of home ing citizen journalists on the web and and news conglomerates embraced pages or mobile applications, where were still subject to institutional filtering work agreements with as little fiscal instead of going to a website to read before they would appear anywhere. commitment as possible. Many information, the information comes to journalists hoped that by doing quality them directly. When it became pos- hen Twitter came along, citizen freelance work they might prove worthy sible to incorporate audio and video Wjournalists began using it as of the elusive staff position. into these feeds, in 2004, the era of the part of their workflow. The same had Meanwhile the actual content became podcast was born. already been true for those who were shallower. The practice of printing press In the process of putting out text, au- on Facebook, MySpace, and other social releases rather than original investigative dio and video content, citizen journalists networks such as Orkut. They used reporting became considered cost also made use of new tools like Skype for these systems to make their work travel effective and acceptable journalism. keeping in touch with their audience as further and find new followers. As Taking too long to research and follow a well as for interviewing guests. Col- usual, the mainstream media corpora- story that might not generate readership laborative programs with multiple hosts tions eventually caught up, and brought was declared too great a financial risk. located in different parts of the world with them their long established and vast Channels raced to copy each other, emerged, all for free via Skype calls. The audiences. remaining committed only to themes option to have comment discussions In today’s media landscape, citizen and styles that had already succeeded appear on each post replaced message journalists and mass media-employed in the market. Being first became a boards and email list discussions for reporters produce content side by side more important selling point over being many communities. It was easier, more on a long list of online venues. Big and detailed and critical. organized, simple, new, and less intru- small, famous and unknown, struggle

44 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 46 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

to gain the attention of anyone and institutional support, while others have everyone looking for news and informa- a staff position at an established, funded, tion on the Internet. Unlike in the days and structured news organization. Of of a few media outlets that only granted course there are also those who fall in access to a chosen group, now it is pos- between, or who travel between both sible for the lone, inexperienced and worlds and produce content both inde- M unknown individual to record or report pendently and for a major news outlet. something that gets rapid and worldwide We are then left with the world we attention. This attention could of course have today and the reporters describing J turn into a larger more sustained reputa- and explaining it to us. Unlike in the R tion as a new legitimate voice or it could past when we would have to wait for a be just a flash in the virtual pan. correspondent from some major media mag.com The competition between big and organization to arrive at the scene of small media producers also means a whatever events are unfolding, nowa- for MORE articles, struggle for each to survive. For the days we look to people who live there or photos and video! individual blogger who strives to retain who have been focused on that region an audience and put out daily or regular because of their interest and initiative.  content, it could be about generating income through ads or donations. The big media companies face a different scenario. As outlets like TV channels and newspapers receive less and less ad revenue, they seek ways to integrate commercials and ads within their online content. In the meantime they continue the practice of buying up competition wherever possible, making reporters and editors do more for less, and appealing to a new pool of free labor, the individ- ual observer or reporter in the audience who submits content in exchange for the possibility of being featured. Realizing the power of established bloggers, media organizations have used their prestige and budget to attract and hire them. Renowned Iraq blogger Salaam Pax was later hired by western newspapers as a Middle East analyst. One of the most popular video bloggers, Ze Frank, was hired to do his show for Time Magazine’s website. Ana Marie Cox, who founded the legendary politi- cal blog Wonkette, would go on to work as a correspondent for Playboy and GQ Magazine. More recently Time War- ner purchased The Huffington Post, a leading example of independent citizen journalists working together on one central hub. All this leads to a blurring of the lines. Today’s citizen journalist could be tomorrow’s CNN correspondent. There are those who produce content on their own in their community or using their own unique approach without any

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Alisia Duganz is a graduating senior in the photojournalism program. She has held many jobs at the J-School, from MJR Montana Kaimin photographer to Native News photo editor to checkout room manager, which shows how much she loves this place. Alisia is originally from STAFF Editor southern Oregon but now calls anywhere Clem Work she has her husband, dog and camera, home. Managing editor Alisia Duganz

Copy chief Tor Haugan Tor Haugan hails from Valdez, Alaska, and is a senior at The University Copy editors of Montana, where he is completing Emerald Gilleran his major in journalism and minor in Colette Maddock African-American studies. He is a copy editor at the Montana Kaimin, and he Photo editor likes to write and play music in his spare time. Alisia Duganz

Design editor Lindsey Galipeau

Designers Alisia Duganz Jes Stugelmayer Emerald Gilleran is graduating from the School of Journalism in May 2011. Design adviser She is from Montana’s capital, Helena, Printer Bowler and she looks forward to relaxing and spending as much time with family as Web designer possible after graduation. In her rare spare time she likes to go on road trips Garrett Browne and take in the sun. Web editor Colette Maddock

Ad manager Emerald Gilleran Colette Maddock is a graduating senior in the print journalism program. Asst. ad manager She is from Whitefish, and she loves Anna Penner-Ray skiing, writing, avocados and getting dressed in the morning (read: clothes). Writers When she graduates she hopes to pursue Ann Fleischli a career that will allow her to combine Tori Norskog two or more of those things. Joe Pavlish Roman Stubbs

46 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 48 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

Lindsey Galipeau is in her third year at The University of Montana. She is a print major but loves to take photos. In the small amount of free time she has outside of story hunting, she enjoys a round of golf on a sunny day.

Jes Stugelmayer is a double major in theater and journalism at The University of Montana and will (hopefully) graduate May 2012. Writing is her passion, whether it is Ann Fleischli, a transplanted through investigative reporting or playwriting. Wisconsin lawyer, writes in Missoula, She sees everything around her as possible where the mountains and the different writing material. After graduation she plans to cultural experience inspire her. Her go wherever the wind takes her. interests include writing stories that combine law and environmental issues. She will graduate from The University of Montana in May 2012 with a master’s degree in print journalism.

Garrett Browne is a senior in broadcast journalism. Garrett is a lifelong Missoulian and an avid Grizzlies fan. Garrett stepped out of his comfort zone joining the Montana Journalism Review team, as this was his first adventure into a fully produced print project. On top of the story written for the magazine, Garrett was also in charge of re-designing the MJR website. He recently accepted a full- time position as marketing director with a Missoula technology company and will start on that path following graduation.

Anna Penner-Ray grew up in Silverthorne, Joe Pavlish is a senior studying Colo., and moved to Helena at the age of 13. She print journalism at The University of is a senior studying broadcast production and Montana. He is currently a news editor will graduate in May 2012. Anna just finished a for the Montana Kaimin, UM’s school magical semester of working at Disney World, newspaper. His feature writing has where she hopes to return after graduation. appeared on multiple websites and in the Kaimin. After graduation he will spend a year overseas studying and putting off his future.

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Editorial | BY GARRETT BROWNE | ‘Kill switches’ Egypt Internet Disruption Starting at 5:20 pm EST on January 27th, threaten Egyptian Internet providers disconnect from the Internet. With the exception of a internet, few companies and government minis- tries, all of Egypt remains blocked from the foreign Internet through Monday. reporting Jan. 27 Jan. 28

he global expansion of high- protesters — or anyone else — calling a to access an Internet “kill switch.” The speed Internet and the decreas- phone number to create a tweet, which switch would allow the U.S. government ing cost of technologies that would then be sent out for the world to to cut all Internet services in the country Tallow citizens to access it have opened see and hear. Similar services emerged. during a “cyber emergency.” The pro- up a new world of possibilities for com- Although a great innovation, it was only posal has been shot down several times munications, news, advocacy and social a Band-Aid for communications coming but continues to be a topic of debate. change. Internet 2.0 made it easier for out of the country. Journalism today obviously depends opponents of the often tyrannical re- Experts point to Egypt’s government- on the free flow of communication. gimes in countries like Egypt, Libya and owned telecommunications as a choke Foreign journalists depend on the Inter- Iran to come together, gather informa- point for Internet traffic, making it easier net to share stories and recount events, tion and make a stand. Social media to switch off. Libya and Syria’s govern- and mainstream journalists are relying platforms like Twitter and Facebook, ments also own the telecommunication more and more on citizen journalists’ as well as documents from WikiLeaks, companies in their countries. In much reports on Internet-dependent social helped provide fuel for revolts through- the same way that these countries can media. When journalists lose the ability out the Middle East. Almost instanta- control the flow of oil through pipelines, to communicate effectively through the neously, information about the protests they have almost the same amount of Internet, audiences lose the ability to in Cario, including firsthand accounts, control over the Internet through cables receive news that is vital to them. was blasted over the Internet. that run in and out of the country. Foreign correspondents already But governments and leaders wishing China’s systematic Internet control, face many technological and physi- to stay in control quickly stomped their ratcheted up even more in response to cal obstacles. Camera crews become fire out. In a very short amount of time, perceived threats of political dissent targets. CNN’s Anderson Cooper and his the world watched as protests in Egypt prompted by events in North Africa and crew were assaulted in broad daylight; led to the government shutting down all the Middle East, is another case in point. CBS News’s Lara Logan was dragged Internet service, even though this had Not only are Chinese citizens blocked away from her crew in Tahrir Square the effect of shutting down banks and from many sites and their Internet and sexually assaulted; four New York other vital commerce and industry. The activities spied on by the government, Times reporters and photographers, two Libyan government was able to do much but foreign correspondents in China Agence France-Presse journalists and the same thing. are being increasingly harassed and three Al-Jazeera journalists were cap- The week-long Internet blackout in restricted in their ability to gather news tured in Libya and treated harshly. Egypt has raised questions about a new and transmit it to their home offices (see But the ability to tell those and all age of censorship: Governments no article by Kathy McLaughlin). stories of global importance is imperiled longer need to control the words their Could the same thing be done in the if autocratic governments can so easily people use, so long as they can prevent United States? Twice, Sen. Joseph Lieber- pull the switch. As surely as the brave them from getting the words out. man, I-Conn., has introduced legislation protesters in Egypt and Libya died for Google quickly developed one reme- that gives the U.S. government, and more their cause, the promise of the Internet dy: Speak-To-Tweet. The service involves specifically the president, the ability will come to an end. 

48 Montana Journalism Review | Beyond Our Borders https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mjr/vol1/iss40/1 50 School of Journalism: Beyond Our Borders: The future of foreign reporting

Wait, there’s MORE! View additional stories online!

Q&A with the students of the Pearl Project by Colette Maddock

Funding for international journalists by Ann Fleischli

Reaching younger readers by The University of Montana’s International Reporting class

Underreported issues by the American media by Tori Norskog

Montana editors on foreign reporting by Colette Maddock

How others perceive the United States by Anna Penner-Ray

Interns abroad! by Tor Haugan

How to get an internship overseas by Tor Haugan

Online foreign news outlets by Anna Penner-Ray

Want ads for foreign correspondents edited by Ann Fleischli

Lessons on foreign reporting: Marcus Brauchli by Joe Pavlish (extended online article)

Mehrdad Kia on foreign reporting by Lindsey Galipeau (extended online article)

M J mag.comR

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