2006 Fellows
Australia
Claire Gorman
producer/reporter
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Canberra
Broadcast journalist Claire Gorman produces and reports for the leading drive-time talk radio program in Canberra, the Australian capital. In 2004 she won an ABC Local Radio Award, her second, for a seven-part series titled “Death and Dying: Breaking the Taboo.” She views the WPI fellowship as an opportunity to stand back from the frenzy of daily radio and take in new perspectives.
“As media professionals we might fancy ourselves open minded. But it’s rare that we take the time to ask ourselves the big questions about what we do,” she explained. “Why are some voices heard often, and others not at all? Why are some subjects taboo and others fashionable? … Do we really understand the impact our work has on the society we live in and vice versa? … Being immersed in unfamiliar cultures forces a person to view the world differently, to find ways to communicate around the barriers and to look one’s fears and prejudices in the eye.”
Brazil
Solange Azevedo
Reporter
Época
São Paulo
Solange Azevedo always wanted to be a journalist but first she worked for eight years as an analyst in the human resources department of a multinational company in São Paulo. At Época, a magazine belonging to the leading media group in Latin America, she writes about crime, justice and human rights. “Brazil is the worldwide champion of homicides in total numbers, according to the World Health Organization,” she said. Only six years into her journalism career, she’s already won three awards for her work, and since 2005 has been teaching investigative reporting.
“I want to learn how the media work in a very big and powerful country,” she said about being in the United States as a WPI fellow. “I would like to learn (about) the relationship between American journalists and their sources, what they think about professional ethics, how investigative journalism works and about the liberty of the press.”
China
Lu Hongyong
business editor
China Daily
Shanghai
Lu Hongyong works for the China Daily in Shanghai, China’s biggest city, and the Yangtze River Delta. He has broad experience covering trade, finance, business and state affairs and has worked for other print media as well as in television. Currently he writes mostly about business, finance and technology.
As an enterprising economic journalist who aspires eventually to become an independent publisher in China, Lu is particularly interested in how print media are to survive the impact of the Internet. In addition to his reporting and editing responsibilities, he has been enlisted to help chart the future course of the “new” China Daily, the country’s oldest English-language daily. “We’re trying to upgrade our brand,” he said.
Czech Republic
Jan Stuchlik
foreign desk editor
Ekonom
Prague
As foreign desk editor at Ekonom, the largest business weekly in the Czech Republic, Stuchlik covers a broad range of international events. He has a master’s degree in international politics and diplomacy and says his mission as a journalist is “to contribute to cultivated and erudite newsgathering about the outer world.”
Getting to know the American system of government and American federalism is one of Jan Stuchlik’s goals in visiting the United States as a WPI fellow. “There has been a lot of talk in Europe about catching up with the United States in economic terms (and) whether or not the future shape of the EU should resemble American federalism,” he explained. “For a deep and meaningful analysis of this issue it would be very helpful to have knowledge of the American tax system and the role individual American states play within it.”
Georgia
Rusudan Tsereteli
editor in chief
Rustavi-Info
Rustavi
As editor in chief at Rustavi-Info, an independent daily, Rusudun Tsereteli is responsible for managing the newsroom, design, layout and editing. She has worked as a war correspondent, covered regional conflicts and done investigative reporting. She translated the World Press Freedom Committee’s basic training manual, “Handbook for Journalists,” into Georgian and currently is writing a book on American journalism. In 2003 she opened a school of journalism in Georgia and in 2005 she was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
“In Georgia, most publishing companies work not for the public but for the government. At the same time, Georgian reporters too often feel it is their job not simply to report the news but to comment on it,” she observed. “They do not understand or value the idea that their job is to gather information and let the facts speak for themselves.” Her purpose in seeking a WPI fellowship, she said, is to gain “deeper knowledge of American journalism: how to cover the government, how to maintain objectivity and how to build credibility between readers and reporters.”
Liberia
Semantics King Jr.
managing editor
The Vision and TheVisionOnline.net
Accra, Ghana
Liberian Semantics King Jr. is the founder and managing editor of The Vision, an eight-page bimonthly tabloid, and TheVisionOnline.net, both serving Buduburum, a refugee camp on the outskirts of Accra that is home to nearly 42,000 Liberians plus 27,000 refugees from other countries in Africa. Previously a newscaster, talk-show host and program director at a radio station in Liberia, King became a refugee, himself, in 2000 following a controversial broadcast he hosted in his homeland. “When I arrived at Buduburam I quickly realized they had no medium to learn about the war back home or about issues affecting them at the camp,” he said. The Web site, launched with help from a Canadian-based NGO and an American computer scientist, has become a central news source and communications hub for Liberians both locally and around the world. King plans to return to his “beloved country” in the foreseeable future.
“My interest in the United States is rooted mostly in the things that I can learn to bring back to my country as it works to establish democratic rule. Liberians have much to learn about a free and open society. Journalists, in particular, must learn how free media function and how to use their role as a watchdog of government,” he said.
Myanmar
Kyaw Min Swe
chief editor
Living Color Magazine
Yangon
Kyaw Min Swe is chief editor with policy responsibility for Living Color Magazine, a business monthly, and two weekly newspapers, The Voice and Khit Myanmar, all privately owned. He is responsible for content and tone, assigning stories, editing articles, submitting material to the censor — as legally required — and training young reporters. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a commercial photographer.
“I want to see what a truly free press looks like and what a democratic society really means,” he said about his WPI fellowship. “I want to study how a democracy deals with conflict. What is the role of the media in the U.S.? How does the checks-and-balances system work in reality? I am especially interested in measuring the U.S. mood on Iraq.”
Papua New Guinea
Sam Vulum
general manager
Sportscope PNG
Port Moresby
Sam Vulum worked as a reporter, subeditor, book editor, general news and foreign desk editor before joining Sportscope PNG, a monthly sports magazine in Papua New Guinea’s capital, as general manager. He started his journalism career working for a Pidgin-language weekly. He said he is “keen to learn about America as a successful multi-cultural and multi-racial society,” not surprising for a journalist coming from a country with 700 indigenous societies and at least as many languages.
“My main purpose in seeking the WPI fellowship is to learn the trade first hand from the best of the best in the First World,” he said. “Unlike my colleagues in America, I write for and about a nation which is at the beginning of its development as a sovereign entity. I deal every day with a world in flux. I cannot automatically assume, for example, that there will be consistency in the outlook of the political leaders, that my paycheck will buy about the same amount of food each week or that the power will always be on to run the press.”
Senegal
Mamadou Thior
editor in chief, political affairs
Radiodiffusion Télévision Sénégalaise
Dakar
Mamadou Thior is editor in chief in charge of political affairs at RTS, a public service radio and television station in the capital of Senegal. With 60 legally recognized political parties in the country and a government of 40 ministers, all of whom expect their activities to be covered by the station, his is no small task. He describes himself as belonging to a generation of young journalists who quickly emerged after the liberalization of the print media in Senegal in the late 1980s and radio in 1994. “Things have changed but there’s still a kind of censorship,” he said. “You have to know your limits.”
Based on previous travel abroad, Thior said he is aware “that news differs from a U.S. and an African perspective.” In particular, he questioned whether “the American press (helps) the American people to know and understand what is going on in the world.” At the same time, he noted the autonomy of journalists in the developed world especially in television, where “one person does the whole job instead of three as we still do here.”
Spain
Silvia Taulés
staff editor
El Mundo
Barcelona
Silvia Taulés is on the staff of El Mundo, Spain’s leading daily, where she specializes in social journalism, reporting on the problems of marginalized social groups including immigrants, the elderly and the needy. Her particular interest in Muslim immigrants led Taulés to immerse herself in their community and write a book, “La nueva España musulmana,” about the new Muslim Spain. She also has traveled as a special correspondent to report on the precarious way of life of some of the poorest people in the Third World.
“I think that real journalism is social, talking with people who deal with reality, who understand the world maybe better than politicians,” she said. “My goals are to keep on trying to investigate what the needs of society are.”
