About New Cuba – U.S.A. Relations

On the plane, something odd but also vaguely magical-seeming happened: namely, nobody knew what time it was. Right before we landed, the flight attendant made an announcement, in English and Spanish, that although daylight saving time recently went into effect in the States, the island didn’t observe that custom. As a result, we had caught up — our time had passed into sync with Cuban time. You will not need to change your watches. Then, moments later, she came on again and apologized. She had been wrong, she said. The time in Cuba was different. She didn’t specify how many hours ahead. At that point, people around us looked at one another. How could the airline not know what time it is where we’re going? Another flight attendant, hurrying down the aisle, said loudly, “I just talked to some actual Cubans, in the back, and they say it’ll be the same time.” That settled it: we would be landing in ignorance. We knew our phones weren’t going to work because they were tied to a U.S. company that didn’t operate on the island.

Read Full Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/magazine/where-is-cuba-going.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

By JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN fOR The New York Times,September 20, 2012

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Austin Tice’s Family Makes Emotional Plea

 

 

The family of Austin Tice, a journalist believed to be captured in Syria, has made an emotional plea for his release.

Tice, a freelance journalist for The Washington Post and McClatchy newspapers and a Georgetown law student, went missing in Syria in August. He appeared in footage that recently emerged, which showed him blindfolded by his captors.

His family reacted in a statement to Russia Today’s Arabic service, saying, “Knowing Austin is alive is comforting to our family, although it is difficult to see him in the circumstances recently depicted.”

Read Full Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/05/austin-tice-family-syria-journalist_n_1943367.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000041#slide=1239812

Publish by  Huff POF Media,  10/05/2012

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Practising journalism carries inherent risks, but female journalists still have to deal with gender-specific issues.

London, UK – Our job as journalists carries with it an inherent risk that affects us all, irrespective of our gender or ethnic background, because we go to places and events that people are trying to get away from: disaster zones, violent confrontations, and unrest.

However, the way that that risk plays itself out can be gender-specific.

In the field, being a woman can disarm aggressiveness and diffuse tension in interactions with authorities who have the power to facilitate or block access and passage.

That same “female factor” can also spiral out of control and turn into a threat of sexual assault. We heard horrific stories of American female journalists being attacked during the Egyptian revolution in 2011. There are many other cases we did not hear about because the victims are not Western.

Read Full Article: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/2012/03/20123882326479522.html

by Zeina Awad publish by Aljazeera, 08 Mar 2012 12:47

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Anthony Shadid dies while woring in Syria

Anthony Shadid, a gifted foreign correspondent whose graceful dispatches for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and The Associated Press covered nearly two decades of Middle East conflict and turmoil, died, apparently of an asthma attack, on Thursday while on a reporting assignment in Syria. Tyler Hicks, a Times photographer who was with Mr. Shadid, carried his body across the border to Turkey.
Mr. Shadid, 43, had been reporting inside Syria for a week, gathering information on the Free Syrian Army and other armed elements of the resistance to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, whose military forces have been engaged in a harsh repression of the political opposition in a conflict that is now nearly a year old.

Read Full Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/world/middleeast/anthony-shadid-a-new-york-times-reporter-dies-in-syria.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&hp&adxnnlx=1329483784-BtTy%2000csqjZfHfHPoR0Uw&

by By RICK GLADSTONE Publish by The New York times, February 16, 2012

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35 Magnum Photographers Give Their Advice to Aspiring Photographers

Bill Reeves, a passionate photographer who is fortunate enough to have Magnum photographers Eli Reed and Paolo Pellegrin as his mentors, told me about a blog post that Magnum had a while back regarding advice to young photographers. It was put together by Alec Soth, who has done a series of fascinating projects such as his most popular, “Sleeping by the Missisippi” which was done on a 8×10 view camera. An interesting excerpt that Bill put together about Alec is below:

Alec writes up lists of things to shoot. Some normal objects, like suitcases, and others more weird, like unusually tall people. He would tape this list to his steering wheel, and be reminded to shoot those things when he saw them. When he found someone to shoot, he would talk to them, and from that conversation find the next thing to go looking for. An example is he did a portrait of a guy who built model airplanes, and then a portrait of a hooker. The link? She had airplanes painted on her nails. He then went to photograph Charles Lindberg’s childhood home, which led him to photograph Johnny Cash’s boyhood home and so on and so forth.

I found the advice that these Magnum photographers is golden–and have shared it here to spread the love and knowledge. Keep reading to see their inspirational images and advice.

Read Full Article: http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2011/09/35-magnum-photographers-give-their-advice-to-aspiring-photographers/

by by ERIC KIM,  SEPTEMBER 26, 2011

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A Guardian war photographer explains the risks and rewards of working on the frontline

War photographers don’t do this because they’re addicted to danger. They’re just like any journalist who wants to do their job well, and they see no romance in it. You certainly think about the risks – last year, Sunday Mirror photographer Phil Coburn lost both his legs and reporter Rupert Hamer was killed in Afghanistan – but ultimately you decide that it’s more important to examine the world we live in. When you’ve got a camera in front of you, you focus on the work.

Read Full Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/apr/22/sean-smith-frontline-reporting

by Sean Smith, Publish by The Guardian, Thursday 21 April 2011

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Rising Risks in Conflict Zones For Novice Journalist

Amanda Lindhout was a waitress at an Irish pub in Calgary, Alberta, with a dream of becoming a journalist. But Ms. Lindhout, who has no formal journalistic training, did not join the ranks of citizen journalists who blog about their communities. Instead, she used her earnings from the bar to finance reporting trips to several of the world’s most dangerous war zones.

Ms. Lindhout and her Australian companion, Nigel Brennan, were released by Somali kidnappers, who had held them for ransom and abused them over the last 15 months. Despite the risks, suffering and capture, which reportedly ended with a payment of $600,000 raised by their families and friends, Ms. Lindhout’s achievements as a journalist have been modest.

Read full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/business/media/30somalia.html?_r=4&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1259604071-AcUf7XjP5NmAOs7oOLt5YQ&

By IAN AUSTEN, for The New York Times, November 29, 2009

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MHz Networks Introduces Al Jazeera English to Washington Area Cable TV Viewers

AJE, funded by and based in the oil-rich Persian Gulf state of Qatar, is a news and news-talk network that broadcasts from four hubs around the world: Doha (Qatar’s capital), London, Washington and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It’s the first worldwide TV news operation based outside the United States or Britain.
Thus, the deal with MHz represents not just expanded distribution to American viewers, but possibly something of a cultural shift, said Will Stebbins, AJE’s Washington bureau chief. “There was clearly an attempt to delegitimize al-Jazeera . . . that came during a period of a lot of national hysteria and paranoia about the Arabic world” after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he said. With time and a new administration, “I think a lot of those ideas and positions are being rigorously questioned and reevaluated. This is a positive development.”

MHz, a nonprofit organization, will add AJE to its lineup of 10 international channels carried on the digital tiers offered by Comcast (the area’s largest cable provider, on Channel 271), Cox, RCN and Verizon Fios systems throughout the region. MHz will also offer it over the air July 1, after local stations have completed the transition to digital broadcasts.

Read full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/28/AR2009042803918.html

By Paul Farhi for Washington Post, Wednesday, April 29, 2009

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SOC Grad Now Correspondent in Germany

WASHINGTON, DC, 13 January 2011 – SOC alumnus Bettina Meier shared her experiences and perspectives as a journalist working in Germany with students in Professor Bill Gentile’s Foreign Correspondence class.

Ms. Meier, a German citizen who graduated in 2006 with a degree in Broadcast Journalism, visited Gentile’s class while on a brief reporting trip to the United States. She currently works as an economics reporter in Germany for ARD, the network of public radio and TV stations comparable to PBS or the BBC of the United Kingdom.

Meier said she first came to the United States to study on a Fulbright Fellowship. After a series of internships at the BBC Washington bureau, NPR’s Morning Edition and C-Span, she returned to Germany in 2007 to freelance for a number of German news and information outlets.

Largely because of her expertise in financial reporting, she was hired at ARD. Bettina stressed the importance of financial reporting, telling students that her skill in economics is a key reason why she was hired. Professor Gentile added that foreign correspondents specializing in finance often are given more access to officials abroad precisely because they are viewed as experts, as opposed to general assignment reporters.

Bettina told the class she is working on three economic pieces during her visit to Washington. During previous trips to the United States, she covered the election of President Barack Obama.

(Photos by Michael Lindley)

Originally posted on:  http://www.foreigncorrespondence.org

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There is a shortage of Foreign Correspondants in American News

Jonathan Kandell, a young reporter just a few years out of Columbia Journalism School, won the newspaperman’s lottery in 1972. The New York Times sent him to South America and, for the next five years, he lived in great style as a foreign correspondent based first in Buenos Aires, then Rio de Janeiro.
These were exciting times to cover South America—military coups, CIA intrigue, political turmoil, murderous regimes quick to jail or even kill journalists. And in those days, the Times correspondent was an important, sometimes, singular, source of what was happening. He (most were men) lived almost as well as an ambassador and had almost as much access. Kandell flew first class. He had an enormous expense account and a team of stringers around the continent to help him. In each of his two posts, he belonged to a press community of more than a dozen permanent U.S. newspaper, newsmagazine, wire service and network TV correspondents.
Now that style of life is gone. Yes, there are still three New York Times bureaus in Latin America—but their reporters survive on much thinner budgets. In fact, as of last year, only a handful of U.S. newspaper correspondents were left in Latin America, among the few survivors as American newspapers are outsourcing coverage of the world to others.
But that’s only half the picture. Despite the pullback, a greater variety of news sources and perspectives is available to American readers. Most news of Latin America now reaches the United States  by Internet–and much of it is produced by Latin Americans reporting on their home countries.  And many aren’t even traditional journalists—but bloggers, financial analysts and scholars.

Read Full Article: http://www.drclas.harvard.edu/publications/revistaonline/spring-summer-2011/covering-region

by JOSH FRIEDMAN for  Revista, spring-summer 2011

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