Alumni Weekend 2023

Which story or project are you most proud of and why?

My master’s thesis on the run up to the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971 that I had covered as a war correspondent for Pakistan TV was easily my most interesting and gratifying project. Apart from the critical eye of my Advisor John Hohenberg, I valued the advice of John Patterson who had become a mentor and eventually a friend. Hohenberg called it an Asian “Guns of August”! Patterson told me to convert the thesis into a book. Some 35 years later and countless interviews and much archival research later, Oxford University Press published Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within. That book, written after I took early retirement from the International Monetary Fund in 2005, opened the door to the think tank world in Washington DC and has become standard reading on Pakistan. It was well received both in India and Pakistan and globally. Thank you, Professors Hohenberg and Patterson!

What advice would you give to the next generation of J-Schoolers?

Keep an open mind on what you want to do. And employ your reading and writing skills in whatever you take on. The J-school training will give you the edge over others. The rest depends on you taking leaps of faith and making the extra effort that will leave you satisfied even if you don’t achieve everything you aimed for. The journey matters.

Which story or project are you most proud of and why?

Reporting of the first town that was taken over by the Shining Path terrorists and the first TV story in Peru on forced disappearances by the army in the Emergency Zone under military rule. They took guts and had an impact. I am proud of my first book, years of work. The most memorable moments were receiving an award from Gabriel García Marquez himself for my documentary Memories of Paradise. Also, winning Best Foreign Documentary from Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto and Artistic Vision Award from Big Sky Film Festival in Montana for my last film Following Kina. Making documentaries in Peru is a labor of love, just finishing them takes persistence from beginning to end. So these awards mean a lot to me. Teaching how to make documentaries to young Peruvians. My youngest student is an extremely talented filmmaker now, she is my pride. Taking the murder of my Peruvian colleague Hugo Bustios to the Inter American Human Rights Court when I was director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. The case was one of the very few cases reopened in Peru after the Truth Commission published its report. The case is still on trial, however, and I hope justice is served at last this year. And lastly, my two front pages in The New York Times.

What advice would you give to the next generation of J-Schoolers?
 
I'd say be passionate, be determined, be curious, be critical, and above everything else, enjoy the ride. And I want to add this because it might help someone: J. School was very hard for me. I had virtually no experience, my English was not good enough so I struggled. It is hard at the beginning. So just stick to it, don’t give up and you’ll be fine.

Which story or project are you most proud of and why?

While working as a Field Producer at ABC News, the country was in racial turmoil after the Rodney King verdict. (LAPD brutally attacked unarmed motorist Rodney King and it was videotaped. Still, a jury acquitted the cops.) At work, colleagues eyed each other warily, and from LA to NYC, tension, grief, and cynicism were the norm. A couple of producers toyed with ideas on how we could tell the story in a powerful way. Producer Mark Lucasiewicz came up with a simple idea: what if we put two men, one Black, one white, in identical situations and have them experience life in a city. They'd be accompanied by a same race and gender photographer. I'd become the in-house hidden-camera expert so I began researching how we could capture subtleties like tone, attitude, and actions. I also researched American cities to find one not known for racial strife.

I hit the road for nearly five months, and finally settled into St. Louis, MO. I practically lived there, researching parts of town, sensing cultural vibes and documenting experiences. After a few months, I called Luk and correspondent Diane Sawyer and said, "I have it. I found it. We have a story." It took our team nearly four months to shoot and edit but we captured the gaping disparity between how the two men were treated. During this period, the Black members of the production team lived the anguish of seeing our lives, and fears, captured on tape and when the piece aired, we knew it was not the end of the story. Indeed, to date, more than 50 organizations, companies, schools, colleges, and universities have used "True Colors" as a training vehicle for teaching tolerance and/or DEI training. I believe that's when I truly learned that Journalistic storytelling could change lives.

What advice would you give to the next generation of J-Schoolers?
 
Focus on being a great storyteller. Listen with your whole self, but yield the floor of attention to the person, place or event you're writing or talking about.

Which story or project are you most proud of and why?

There are many datelines and scoops that I am proud of through nearly 40 years in the field, but I am most proud of what I hope will be an enduring legacy that we are creating through The GroundTruth Project by supporting and inspiring a new generation to serve as local reporters through our Report for America and Report for the World program. At a time when journalism feels very much under attack, I am proud as the founder of GroundTruth that we are finding a way to fight back and create opportunity for the next generation and I am always amazed at the caliber of work this new generation is producing through innovative and pioneering ways to tell the stories that matter.

What advice would you give to the next generation of J-Schoolers?

Start your career as a local news reporter, and embrace the idea that there is no better way to be grounded in the craft than to serve the community where you live. And do not let anyone try to tell you that the old days in journalism were better. They weren't. They were laced with many problems, including racism and misogyny and as a result too many newsrooms missed far too many stories that needed to be told and missed out on the perspectives of those who bring their own lived experience in telling those stories. Now there is an incredibly exciting future for journalism once we navigate past this moment of tumult and disruption amid a general erosion of trust in the work we do. It's hard to see that there is a blue sky there beyond the dark clouds gathering around us, but I do believe it's there. And each of you have an opportunity -- and an obligation -- to navigate us into that future and regain the trust that journalism seems to have lost.

Which story or project are you most proud of and why?

Too many to list...when I ran The Asian Wall Street Journal back in the 1990s, we had reporters chasing a story overnight that Indonesian President Suharto, battling a tide of riots and unrest, would step down in the morning. We had good sourcing, but it wasn't definitive, and we had to make a call, early in the morning, whether to print or hold the story. We printed. I took a shower, headed to the office, and when I got there the word came in: He had resigned.

But probably the proudest moment was at Reuters, in 2021, when - after several failed attempts that involved a multi-country team working through multiple nights coordinating and tracking logistics and movements - we finally got nearly a hundred staff and family members onto a plane out of Kabul and into Pakistan.

What advice would you give to the next generation of J-Schoolers?

Make friends, and get to know the professors. What you learn in your year here is incredibly valuable, but it pales compared to the lifelong learning you'll gain from staying connected to the J-school community over the decades.

Which story or project are you most proud of and why?

2022 is by the far the most important and most memorable year of my career. I am proud that I was in Kyiv when the war started and did work that I found meaningful in the first months of the war. I am also very proud that I made the decision to return to Moscow in August to keep our bureau staffed, despite the increasing difficulties of working in Russia. I feel grateful to do this work for a publication I love with the most supportive colleagues and editors I could ask for. I’m proud of the stories I did about how Ukraine and Russia are changing, and also proud that some of them also appeared in audio format on our flagship podcast “The Daily”.

What advice would you give to the next generation of J-Schoolers?

Your professors and administrators are your biggest advocates, get to know them, pepper them for advice, and stay in touch with them. Find a story that you love and immerse yourself in it, try to become an expert, and follow the story where it takes you.

Which story or project are you most proud of and why?

In 2013, after watching the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements build, I was convinced there was something big happening with speech and social media. There were not a lot of people who agreed with me or saw what I saw. But I was determined to research and write more about the topics. So, I ended up writing my master’s thesis titled “The Revolution Will Be Tweeted” and explored issues like Section 230 and limits to free expression. A decade later, these same issues are currently before the Supreme Court and impacting the daily lives of so many people on our planet. I’m proud of myself for trusting my instinct and pursuing work that I thought was important. 

What advice would you give to the next generation of J-Schoolers?

The most important thing that I like to tell students is that the job or role that you are dreaming of doing may not actually exist yet. I wrote my master's thesis about an entire field that hadn’t yet been created that I would later work in. So while we live in a world that is changing and innovating so rapidly, industries often take time to catch up. Believe in yourself and trust that the niche intersection you are obsessed with is going to become as big of a deal as you think that it is. Go get prepared with your studies, your research, and your practical experience so that you will be intellectually prepared to meet the moment when it arrives.