In April 2012, Nicole Schilit, research associate in CPJ’s Journalist Assistance program, interviewed James Foley about his experience working as a freelance journalist in conflict zones. The interview took place in New York between reporting trips to Libya and Syria. Foley was murdered in Syria in August 2014.
This excerpt of the interview has not been previously published.
“We didn’t give up on our belief in democratic values, as we believed initially the government’s promises of pluralism. Drunk as we were with dreams of liberty, we exposed corruption, rights abused, and called things as they were. The government response came in even tougher repression of journalists, imprisonments, kidnappings and newspaper closures.”
– Abdul Kareem Al-Khaiwani, a prominent Yemeni journalist who was assassinated in the capital Sana`a last week. Watch our full analysis of the political turmoil in Yemen on Democracy Now! today with reporter Iona Craig. (via democracynow)
Jon Stewart makes his directorial debut in Rosewater—the story of Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari who was detained, interrogated, and tortured for filming protests in Iran during the 2009 presidential elections.
Here’s a clip from Fresh Air’s interview with Stewart:
On how humor sustained Bahari when he was in solitary confinement
“Humor survives in the bleakest of conditions. … I think the idea that under these incredibly harsh conditions, not only did [Bahari’s] humor survive, his humor sustained him. And I found that incredibly empowering to an extent in that I always felt that.
People always say, “Is that an appropriate joke? Is it appropriate to joke about that subject?” And [I] always want to say, “Not only is it appropriate to joke about that subject, but I think it’s essential to joke about it.” … I’ve always had this experience at funerals or in a time of great worry [that] a joke can kind of reenergize or reconfigure a room or bring people back to life to some extent. His ability to do that for himself in the absence of audience I thought was remarkable.”
PS. We had so much material we want to share with you that we’re splitting the Stewart interview into two parts. We’ll have a second show that’s more about The Daily Show airing soon. Stay tuned.
Navigating the road between maintaining personal freedom and earning a crust can be a rocky one. Sit in one place too long and stagnate or cut loose until the cash runs out. Armed with a restless spirit perhaps…
James Foley is just the latest photojournalist to be killed while covering the world’s most dangerous wars. Here we look at some of his fellow journalists and their work.
(Photo: A libyan rebel fighter runs up a burning stairwell during an effort to dislodge some ensconced government loyalist troops who were firing on them from an upstairs room during house-to-house fighting on Tripoli Street in downtown Misrata April 20, 2011 in Misrata, Libya. Rebel forces assaulted the downtown positions of troops loyal to Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi April 20, briefly forcing them back over a key bridge and trapping several in a building that fought back instead of surrendering, firing on the rebels in the building and seriously wounding two of them during the standoff. Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
“From where I stand now, there’s no certainty; nothing is fixed, everything changes. I think photography is a subjective act, one that relies on the descriptive nature of the real to give it its meaning. This is not too dissimilar to how history is written and how memory works – fragmentary, incomplete. For me borders are a manmade construct and through this construct an ideology is built around history and memory that leads people to identify or not with an idea of nation. This is particularly accentuated right now in the east of Europe, where histories are being reinterpreted. During my time in the Balkans and the Black Sea I began to see that every ‘side’ had their own perspective; each was telling their truth. So for me it was a question of a plurality of truths and realities. There are many layers of history, more questions than answers.”
Q: Today you saw the children lying on the beach. What was it like to see this but be unable to help?
Tyler Hicks: It was clear that these children were beyond help. I was very close to three of the four children who were killed and it was clear that they had been killed instantly. Had there been some way to help them I certainly would have. Because Gaza is so small ambulance crews arrive almost immediately when something happens.
Image: A civilian carries one of four Palestinian cousins killed by an Israeli air strike while playing on a beach in Gaza on July 16, 2014, by Tyler Hicks via The New York Times.
“Sometimes the CIA or the director of national intelligence or the NSA or the White House will call about a story. You hit the brakes, you hear the arguments, and it’s always a balancing act: the importance of the information to the public versus the claim of harming national security. Over time, the government too reflexively said to the Times, “you’re going to have blood on your hands if you publish X,” and because of the frequency of that, the government lost a little credibility. But you do listen and seriously worry. Editors are Americans too. We don’t want to help terrorists.”
In a Q&A with Cosmo, Abramson talks about life after the Times and offers good advice to young journos. For example:
I taught at Yale for five years when I was managing editor and what I tried to stress for students interested in journalism, rather than picking a specialty, like blogging or being a videographer, was to master the basics of really good storytelling, have curiosity and a sense of how a topic is different than a story, and actually go out and witness and report. If you hone those skills, you will be in demand, as those talents are prized. There is too much journalism right now that is just based on people scraping the Internet and riffing off something else.
One year ago, journalist Jose Antonio Vargas revealed to the world that he was an undocumented immigrant — building his entire career, which included time at The Washington Post and The Huffington Post, on a lie. Vargas looks back at the past year in an interview with BuzzFeed, where he considers the weirdness of becoming an activist, his friends lost (many in the news industry), and his friends gained (Mark Zuckerberg, Aaron Sorkin). Great piece.
From the archives—a great piece on Jose Antonio Vargas for some backstory.
