SAJAforum

CONV: Q&A with 2008 Daniel Pearl Fellow Umar Cheema

Umar Cheema, a reporter for the News International in Islamabad, Pakistan, is the 2008 Daniel Pearl Fellow at The New York Times. In a panel entitled "Pakistan in Peril" Cheema shared his experiences in the country, which is ranked as the third-most dangerous in the world for journalists.

Journalism has become more independent and is no longer scrutinized as much Cheema says in a conversation with student blogger Bibek Bhandari. Here are excerpts from that conversation.

How is your fellowship going at The New York Times?

I have worked in The New York Times’ metro section, computer-assisted reporting and investigative cluster, and went to the Investigative Reporters and Editors' workshop. I will spend two weeks in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Then go to Los Angeles to meet Daniel Pearl’s parents and would spend time in Los Angeles Press Club discussing with them different issues about inter-faith harmony, because the purpose of this fellowship is to resolve conflicts, promote dialogues between different faiths.

I am learning about [American]  newsrooms, how they work, and consequently what could I take back home, and what new things could be improved there.

 

What are the major differences you notice between American newsrooms and the ones in Pakistan?

I think the major difference is in terms of resources. They are more resourceful here financially, and when you’re financially strong, you can deploy more staff, facilitate them in a better way.

Reporting skills are different. The U.S. media concentrates mostly on storytelling.

How to write a good story, and how to bring human angles to the story. And as far as our media is concerned, and when I say our, Asian media mostly where the press is relatively independent, there is an element of opinion in our reporting that we learned from the British media. The European media overall, it is considered as opinionated media. We sometimes editorialize in our reporting. We give our opinions. I think that is the difference.

In terms of society, the good things I have learned [in the U.S.] is that people respect each other’s opinion. If I disagree with you, it doesn’t mean I am against you. In Pakistani culture, if I disagree people believe that I am against them.

FELLOWSHIPS: New Knight-MDLF International Journalism Fellowship Program

From the press release below:

The International Center for Journalists and the Media Development Loan Fund today announced a new partnership, the Knight-MDLF International Journalism Fellowship Program.

The partnership takes advantage of the strengths of the two organizations. MDLF helps build independent media in emerging democracies. It provides low-cost loans and other business assistance. ICFJ’s Knight International Journalism Fellows work on projects designed to make lasting, visible change in the world of journalism.

“The creation of self-sustaining independent media is a powerful way to change a country’s journalism,” said ICFJ President Joyce Barnathan. “Our task will be to ensure that these news businesses survive and thrive by helping them with just the right fellow to just the right newsroom at just the right time.”

Fellows must speak the language of the target country. They must have at least 10 years’ news experience, the ability to plan a specific, detailed training project and the time to spend a year making it work.

This new partnership bolsters the Media Development Loan Fund’s long-term strategy of adapting best media management practices to the needs of local news outlets in the developing world. “This partnership will enable us to expand our capacity to provide world-class consultants to leading independent news businesses in transitional countries,” said MDLF Managing Director Sasa Vucinic. “Fellows will help our clients launch projects that will help ensure long-term success.”

See the details below and post your comments, too.

FELLOWSHIPS: AASFE Diversity Fellowships 2008

Kris Worrell, editor of the Beaumont Enterprise of Beaumont, Texas is head of the diversity committee for the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors (AASFE). She wrote to SAJA to say, "We offer a fellowship to minority journalists who work in features so that they may participate in  our national conference at no charge."

See below for the details of the the fellowship (deadline is June 20, 2008) and the conference is in Houston, Oct. 15-18.

JOBS: South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Training Program

We don't usually post jobs here (paid SAJA members get access to the SAJA JobsDatabase Blog - click here to become a paid member), but occasionally post items we think are worth your knowing about. Below is an annoucement from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel we wanted to share. It's being posted here because it's part of a program "designed to encourage journalists from underrepresented communities and backgrounds to consider careers in journalism" (also because it's in sunny South Florida and I am freezing here in NYC). A side note: Sun-Sentinel has long been a SAJA supporter. Sharon Rosenhause, the managing editor, was the Los Angeles Times South Asia correspondent 1976-79 and continues to take an active interest in the region and the diaspora. Kathleen Pellegrino, the recruitment editor, has been to several SAJA Job Fairs over the last few years and been very helpful to our members.

Journalism Training Program
Applications are being accepted for a newsroom-training program for news
reporters at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.  This trainee will be part of
Tribune Company's Metpro, a two-year program designed to encourage
journalists from underrepresented communities and backgrounds to consider
careers in journalism.  The chosen candidate will receive six months of
training at the Sun-Sentinel starting in Fall 2008.  

FELLOWSHIPS: Interview with Arul Louis, Knight fellow on climate change in India

SAJAer and New York Daily News editor Arul Louis was recently awarded a Knight International Journalism Fellowship. His fellowship will take him to India, where he intends to develop tools and resources related to development and climate change for TERI, The Energy and Resources Institute headed by Nobel laureate Dr. Rajendra Pachauri (see Arul's project description).

Louis (photographed here by Thomas Monaster/Daily News) has been at the Daily News for 14 years. Prior to that, he worked at papers in New Jersey, as well as India Abroad. He considers his coverage of India's Emergency the "story of a lifetime." He recently returned from Bali, where he attended the UN climate change conference, even blogging on it as one of 10,000 people "crammed into the conference."

We asked him a few questions about this next stage in his career.

So, can you tell me a little more about this fellowship?

The Knight International Journalism Fellowships are funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Fellows, who are experienced international media people, work with host organizations abroad on high-impact projects. Broadly, the goals are to help improve the standards of journalism and to innovate. In my case, the partner – or host organization – is TERI, The Energy Resources Institute.

The program has changed since it was started 22 years ago. Since 2006, the program has focused on specific issues or goals – like the environment, health, election coverage or ethics – and fellowships now are a year long. The program also emphasizes getting results that can be measured, and continuity, so that work done during the fellowship is sustained.

Incidentally, the program is launching a Fellowship on elections and political coverage in Pakistan and is looking for candidates.

Will you be working in some capacity with Dr. Rajinder Pachauri himself? Can you expand on the Project description, specifically the part that says "help journalists develop and utilize sophisticated tools, including online resources and media associations"?

I don't expect to be working directly on a day-to-day basis with Dr. Pachauri. TERI doesn't have a media program now and we have a plan to develop one. This will be an opportunity for us to come up with programs that are suitable for India and that utilize new technologies. For example, we can find new, interactive ways to present information. Here is an experiment (on Diwali/Deepavali's environmental impact) that can get timely information on the environment down to neighborhood levels (It's still at the alpha stage, so the stats are old; but it gives you a hint of what is possible.)

AWARDS: Moni Basu Wins Dart Center Fellowship

The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma is one of the most important media institutions today. Its mission:

The Dart Center is a global network of journalists, journalism educators and health professionals dedicated to improving media coverage of trauma, conflict and tragedy. The Center also addresses the consequences of such coverage for those working in journalism.

It gives out the annual Ochberg fellowship:

Reporting responsibly and credibly on violence and traumatic events — on crime, family violence, natural disasters and accidents, war and genocide — is among the greatest challenges facing contemporary journalism. The Dart Center Ochberg Fellowship, now in its ninth year, was established by the Dart Center in order to better prepare journalists for this challenge. The fellowship is named for the Dart Center Executive Committee's Chairman Emeritus, Frank Ochberg, M.D., a psychiatrist and pioneer in the understanding of violence and trauma.

This year's winners include SAJAer Moni Basu of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who has done at least six tours of duty as a reporter in Iraq. Here's her fellowship bio:

Moni Basu is a national and international reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She has covered the Iraq war and spent five months embedded with a Georgia Army National Guard brigade. She is now covering soldiers' re-entry into civilian life. She has also reported from Cuba, Chile, Norway, Jordan, Kuwait and India. She covered the devastating 2001 earthquake in Ahmedabad, India, military suicides at Fort Bragg, SARS in Toronto and West Nile virus in Louisiana. In 2005 she was honored as Journalist of the Year by the Atlanta Press Association and has also won awards from the South Asian Journalists Association, Associated Press Managing Editors and the Society of Newspaper Design.

See Moni's farewell post for the AJC's Georgians @ War blog. Congrats to Moni and we wish her the best during her fellowship.

Post your comments below.

 

AWARDS: Gaiutra Bahadur wins Nieman Fellowship

SAJAer Gaiutra Bahadur, freelance journalist, and former staff writer (and Baghdad correspondent) for the Philadelphia Inquirer is among this year's winners of the highly competitive Nieman Fellowships at Harvard. She will study the consequences of globalization for developing countries, particularly as it relates to migration and poverty levels. Bahadur is designated the Louis Stark Fellow (named for the New York Times reporter who was a pioneer in the field of labor reporting).

Additionally, she's a contributor to a brand new anthology, Living on the Edge of the World: New Jersey Writers take on the Garden State (link to Simon & Schuster, the Hudson Reporter, and to a WCBS segment in which the interviewer somehow mistakes the essays for short stories). Gaiutra's piece, she tells us, is "about growing up immigrant in Jersey City  in the 1980s, when the Dotbusters gang terrorized the Indian and the Indian-looking there."

She answered three quick questions from SAJAforum.

Q: What do you plan to study at Harvard?
A: I'll be taking a lot of development economics classes and also plan to work on my language skills: Arabic and Spanish.

FELLOWSHIPS: Maynard Editing Fellowships

Terrific opportunity below - eight full fellowships to the Maynard Editing Program (they cover tuition, room and group meals during the six-week program and include a travel stipend). They are really underselling SAJA friend Ken Cooper here. They say:

The program director is Kenneth J. Cooper, a veteran journalist who has worked at the Washington Post and the Boston Globe.

He, was, most recently, the Globe's national editor and before that was the Post as an education writer and South Asia bureau chief (He won a 1999 SAJA Journalism Award for his March 1998 report on the Taliban's spiritual roots in Deoband, India.) And, oh yes, he won a Pulitzer in 1984.

Just working with him makes this worth it. See details below. [ While we are taking shots at an organization's communications materials, let us acknowledge that SAJA's own bio of Cooper is out of date.