Have you ever tried to explain Groundhog Day to someone who isn’t from the United States? Try it some time. See how it goes. The other day, I made a reference to the famous day when an oversized rodent sees his shadow, and was met with a blank stare. I thought about what must have …
TINTÉLOT, Mali. The first time it happened was backstage at the University Theater after a final dress rehearsal for The Taming of the Shrew. I was Petruchio, and dressed in some ridiculous Elizabethan garb: tunic and tights, buttons and bows. A piece of unfinished scenery was on the stage floor, a nail sticking out of …
Second puncture wound. First time in the Third World. Read More »
Late tonight/early morning tomorrow, I fly to Bamako, Mali, and then onto deeper regions in the country, including the fabled Timbuktu. I’m doing some video work with an NGO called Trickle Up. The group gives small grants in some of the world’s most poverty stricken areas, in the belief that helping some of the poorest …
Stephen Franklin, a veteran international correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, is my office mate and fellow Knight Fellow. And in his four months here, he’s kept a web log about “Arab journalism and more.” He writes brief, but eloquent, little glimpses of the lives of writers and bloggers he’s met here in Egypt, on his …
Just realized today that these two articles ran in last Thursday’s Daily Star Egypt (I somehow missed them in the print edition). One is a profile of yours truly by Farah Al Alfy, one of the students in my graduate documentary course. She outed me as “one of those people who express a story using …
I just finished my final week as a Knight International Journalism Fellow at the American University in Cairo. Well, at least the funding runs out this week. I still have some chores to do, like a report and a final article, and we’re hosting a visit next week by the director of the center that …
It’s hard to gauge whether you’re having an impact. As I near the end of my time here, I was looking for tangible signs that the lessons and experience I’ve been sharing and teaching others were getting through. I waited and hoped something would air that would clearly show a direct benefit of my work …
I have been to the mountaintop. On my last trip to Sinai, I didn’t have time to make the trip to the place where Moses did a high altitude download of the world’s first top ten list. So when my friend Ed came to visit, he asked if we could make the trip to Mt. …
First Person Films Blind musicians, Iraqi refugees, stressed-out emergency room doctors and men who iron clothes with their feet. These are a few of the subjects of compelling short documentary films produced this year by students in the professional and graduate programs at the American University in Cairo’s Center for Electronic Journalism. Join us (if …