Foreign Correspondence is a podcast that brings you hour-long interviews with journalists around the world hosted by Jake Spring.
Episodes
Sunday Feb 23, 2020
Sunday Feb 23, 2020
Stuart Lau (@stuartlauscmp) weaves his personal narrative together with the story of Hong Kong seamlessly. He touches on his beginnings in journalism that coincided with the first protests there since Tiananmen, pursuing a key official in the HK handover from the UK to China decades later, his inability as a Hong Konger to become a diplomat (much to the benefit of of the journalism industry), and much more. He also takes us to Cuba and Brussels but always with a bit of HK and China looming in the background.
He talks about growing up the son of a Hong Kong native and a mainlander (5:40), his first inklings of journalism as he pursued a law degree (7:05), journalism school and getting his foot in the door of South China Morning Post (10:00), his SCMP days in Hong Kong covering a landmark court case and protests (22:22), a stint at BBC and his move to Brussels with SCMP (34:10), his story about Hong Kongers who migrated to Cuba in the 1950s (52:06), his role in the Panama Papers revelations (58:41), and finally the lightning round (1:04:17).
Here are links to some of the things we talked about:
Stuart's "think piece" on the climate change summit - http://bit.ly/2wHNyPH
His story on Hong Kong migrants in Cuba - http://bit.ly/2wGvlSv
One of his Panama Papers stories - http://bit.ly/32il7Dv
Xinhua's English language website - http://bit.ly/2SSgsVy
New Yorker story on Iranian General Soleimani - http://bit.ly/32l3S4g
David Foster Wallace essay on porn - http://bit.ly/2PicZxr
Jeremy Bowen's "War Stories" - https://amzn.to/2uWEWUN
Jade Chen's 《時代的摺痕》- http://bit.ly/2VictmX
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Feb 09, 2020
Sunday Feb 09, 2020
Which path to take, editor or reporter? It’s a choice many journalists have to make at some point. Quartz India Editor Diksha Madhok (@dikshamadhok) tells us how she went from exercising influence through individual stories on issues like women in Indian society to shaping whole newsrooms and publications.
We discuss growing up in India and not becoming an engineer (3:47), going to Columbia j-school (9:18), her time with Reuters (13:10), joining Quartz and becoming an editor (18:11), being an editor vs being a reporter (24:00), her story about why few highly educated Indian women stay in the workforce (32:58), another story on Indian housewives in the United States (35:57), and finish with the lightning round (41:54).
Here are links to some of the things we talked about:
ThePrint - http://bit.ly/37crAkd
Diksha’s story about Indian women dropping out of the workforce - http://bit.ly/2ODG4mK
Her story about Indian housewives in the U.S. - http://bit.ly/2OFxVhB
NYT story The Jungle Prince of Delhi - https://nyti.ms/39hXIUR
NYT’s Smarter Living newsletter - https://nyti.ms/2tKs9nK
Indian journalist Shekhar Gupta on Twitter - http://bit.ly/2ScjjIA
NYT’s Ellen Barry on Twitter - http://bit.ly/379sazf
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Jan 26, 2020
Sunday Jan 26, 2020
A 20+ year career as a foreign correspondent in Japan, Brazil and China has given Jonathan time to reflect on the great responsibility and privilege of the job, but also the preposterousness of being tasked with summing up another country. Speaking to us while on sabbatical in the Amazon rainforest, Jonathan tells how he came to realize that the environment is the most important issue of our time and how that lead him to his current job as Global Environment Editor for The Guardian in London.
We talk about where he is in the Amazon (5:22), how he is the product of then-robust UK social welfare programs and went to Manchester University during the music boom there (9:45), his move to Japan and first steps/misteps into journalism (17:42), getting his foot in the door at The Guardian as a stringer in Japan (23:03), moving to China as a full-time correspondent (30:41), switching to Brazil in search of a break just as the country fell off the cliff (42:41), the jarring return to the UK after so many years abroad (49:20), de-ghetto-izing environmental reporting (54:52), The Guardian’s big feature series last year spotlighting The Polluters most responsible for historic greenhouse gas emissions (59:50), and finish on the lightning round (1:05:55).
Here are links to some of the things we talked about:
Rainforest Journalism Fund - http://bit.ly/2tQ2ERV
Concrete: the most destructive material on earth - http://bit.ly/2GmjR8d
Jonathan's book When a Billion Chinese Jump - https://amzn.to/37u8Jlz
Opening story in The Polluters series in the Guardian - http://bit.ly/2NYijFK
Mongabay - http://bit.ly/38ByRv5
NYT story on methane leaks - https://nyti.ms/38Gne6c
Jonathan's story on North Korea air raid drill - http://bit.ly/3aF2Ofr
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Jan 12, 2020
Sunday Jan 12, 2020
Should correspondents abroad for international publications like Associated Press, Reuters, NYT, etc be foreigners or locals? Lynsey Chutel (@lynseychutel), a South African journalist who has been a staff reporter for Associated Press and startup website Quartz, can see both sides of the argument. But she also shares her frustration at a two-tiered system within many organizations that at its worst gives foreign parachute journalists massive benefits packages while reducing locals to stringers or fixers with no clear route to advance.
We talk about growing up under apartheid (6:30), her first steps into journalism (12:23), how applying to Columbia journalism school on a lark kept her in the industry when she was considering leaving (17:20), realizing the dream of working at the AP and covering things like the Oscar Pistorius trial (30:50), a Columbia Journalism Review article on hiring foreigners vs locals (41:45), her story on how Chinese companies copied Congolese fabric patterns and ultimately killed their local textile industry (54:15) and finish on the lightning round, including a new question on work-life balance (1:02:00).
Here are links to some of the things we talked about:
Columbia Journalism Review's "Rethinking foreign reporting at the AP" - http://bit.ly/37KfjEb
Lynsey's story "China's role in the DR Congo's textile industry collapse - http://bit.ly/302fs37
theSkimm newsletter - http://bit.ly/39QaRG0
1619 podcast on Apple - https://apple.co/2tDskRr
Jill Lepore bio - http://bit.ly/2N4AsRL
Trailer for The Loudest Voice - http://bit.ly/2s2Y9T8
Howard French's "A Continent for the Taking" - https://amzn.to/2Fqt1Aa
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Dec 01, 2019
Sunday Dec 01, 2019
Ever wonder about the right formula for being an international freelancer? Kit Gillet (@kitgillet), a freelancer for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Economist and any number of magazines and newspapers, seems to have figured it out. He has reported from more countries than just about any other journalist I know, freelancing for the last eight years first in China and then in Romania. A willingness to go places where few other journalists go is certainly a key element to international freelance success as well as talent, ambition and maybe a bit of naivety.
We talk about his early years in the UK before moving to Sri Lanka and Vietnam (4:50), arriving in China by bus to start his journalism career working his way through a business magazine and the South China Morning Post (12:32), reviewing our shared connections and how we crossed paths in China at a fertile time for young journalists (21:33), his move to Romania and getting set up there (31:55), his “story that got away” on the mixed race children left behind by American GIs in the Vietnam war (43:35), reporting on voluntary crucifixion, cockfighting and cemetery dwellers in the Philippines (49:01), and end on the lightning round (56:55).
Note: The podcast will go on break for the holidays and return with new episodes in January.
Here are links to some of the things we talked about:
Kit’s website, home to much of his work - http://bit.ly/2XIccZL
His story on cockfighting in the Philippines - http://bit.ly/37Bw7xQ
His story on cemetery dwellers in Manila - http://bit.ly/2XKxGp2
BBC podcast In Our Time - https://bbc.in/2se22V6
BBC program Desert Island Discs - https://bbc.in/34jdkp7
Border by Kapka Kassabova - https://amzn.to/33ho1qM
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh - https://amzn.to/2MRzo4s
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Nov 17, 2019
Sunday Nov 17, 2019
Man this is an American episode. There is cocaine, the military, refugees, the decline of the American newsroom, a one-room school house, steel mills, the list goes on. Lots of laughs too. I talked to Janet Morgan, editor of the Myrtle Beach Herald, a weekly newspaper in South Carolina. Janet has won copious awards for her photography and likes to spend a long time following her subjects. She walks us through a couple of those projects and her winding career through local newspapers.
We discuss her childhood in South Carolina (2:45), picking up photojournalism in college as a way to meet boys (5:26), a sketchy first job and working at a string of newspapers (7:08), covering the troops in the first Gulf War and Haitian refugees in Guantanamo (12:13), working at the newspaper The Sun News where we met (20:20), her story following the beleaguered Georgetown Steel Mill and its workers (39:40), documenting the last days of a one-room school house that served the Sandy Island community of slave descendants (47:01) and end on the lightning round (52:14).
Here are links to some of the things we talked about:
Janet's photos and story on the Georgetown Steel Mill - http://bit.ly/2OfDC4S
Her photos of Ms Ruby one-room school house - http://bit.ly/2QpQloo
The Myrtle Beach Herald website - http://bit.ly/2NWtNdn
The Sun News website - http://bit.ly/2qjpijS
New York Times' 1619 project - https://nyti.ms/2rM3KN6
The Tattooist of Auschwitz - https://amzn.to/2pukYhq
Dorothea Lange photography from MoMA - https://mo.ma/32QehDJ
The Killing Fields on IMDb - https://imdb.to/2OjcC4t
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Nov 03, 2019
Sunday Nov 03, 2019
Capturing the perfect moment is essential for visual journalists. For two stories by Hélène Franchineau (instagram: @helene_fr), the critical images were moments of reunion. First, she tells the odyssey of Chinese migrant workers going home for Chinese New Year, the only chance to see their children and family each year. And then the story of a Uyghur man jailed in Turkey, likely under pressure from China. Hélène is a freelancer visual journalist based in Turkey but takes us through France, China and Africa. Her penchant for running marathons in unusual, and possibly dangerous, places is also discussed.
Hélène talks about growing up in small town France where her China obsession began (8:20), her move to China and first journalism gigs (15:52), going to j-school in New York/Paris for a master's degree (18:51), getting a job at South China Morning Post in Hong Kong (24:28), moving to Beijing to work for the Associated Press (28:21), how she got from China to Turkey (32:15), her story on trafficking of adorable pangolins from Africa to China (37:52), her short doc about Chinese migrant workers returning home for the holidays (42:31) and a Uyghur man who is caught up in Turkey's efforts to please China (50:52). And, of course, the lightning round (56:58).
Here are links to some of the things we talked about:
Foreign Correspondence on Youtube - http://bit.ly/foreignpodyoutube
NGO World Vision's website - http://bit.ly/34pCbaA
China culture website Shanghaiist - http://bit.ly/2qbFyTM
Hélène's story on pangolin trafficking - http://bit.ly/2pCguoN (video) http://bit.ly/2NCLqNR (text)
Story on Chinese migrants returning home - http://bit.ly/2pqCIu7 (video) http://bit.ly/34pP7x3 (text)
Her story about Uyghur man's arrest in Turkey - http://bit.ly/2Nysik7
New Yorker's Evan Osnos on Twitter - http://bit.ly/2C2CqvY
BBC's From Our Own Correspondent podcast - https://bbc.in/34h0zLs
Photographer Lynsey Addario's website - http://bit.ly/2WCWkqW
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Oct 20, 2019
Sunday Oct 20, 2019
You've been reporting on Brazil for about six years and an old source gets in touch. The preacher tells you how bad things have gotten since the last time you saw him years back, when things were already stalling out for what was once billed as an oil boom town. A militia had taken over their small town, and people are disappearing. What do you do? Well, if your Bruce Douglas (@bruceecurb), you report the hell out of it. Bruce, an editor for Bloomberg in Brasilia, dusted off his reporting hat and got to the bottom of it. It's a story of years of reporting on Brazil really paying off.
Bruce discusses growing up in small town England (4:10), early journalism rumblings from starting a high school newspaper to interning at The Tico Times in Costa Rica (10:55), J-school and breaking into London journalism (16:50), a seven-year stint with the BBC radio (19:36), taking the plunge into foreign correspondence in Rio for the World Cup, Olympics and general political carnage (24:20), exiting freelancing for Brasilia and Bloomberg (35:41) and walking us through his story on the Rio militia/mafia (42:10). Of course, we end with the lightning round (53:40).
Here are links to some of the things we talked about:
The Tico Times - http://bit.ly/2BkNJPZ
Latin American Newsletters - http://bit.ly/33EMaIE
BBC World Service radio - https://bbc.in/2MTrwgX
Bruce's Foreign Policy piece "The Kickback that Killed Brazil" - http://bit.ly/35KZQnm
His piece for Bloomberg on police extortion in Brazil - https://bloom.bg/33HKWfL
Guardian columnist Marina Hyde on Twitter - http://bit.ly/32qEABe
Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland on Twitter - http://bit.ly/2MTAjzJ
Spectator columnist Rod Liddle - http://bit.ly/35InZux
William Langewiesche on MH370 disappearance - http://bit.ly/32ugOEo
George Orwell essay A Hanging - http://bit.ly/31mUevV
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Oct 06, 2019
Sunday Oct 06, 2019
What was it like reporting on the Christchurch mosque attack? Charlotte Greenfield tells us how it felt to be there as someone from New Zealand and takes us inside her story examining how such an attack could happen. We also talk about her story from when she did a stint in Afghanistan on how US peace talks with the Taliban could be marginalizing Afghan women.
We talk about growing up in Wellington with a journalist step-father (3:55), studying law and journalism despite having no intention of becoming a lawyer (10:23), founding an NGO in Kenya (18:45) Columbia j-school (24:00), her start at Reuters in Indonesia (30:35), her story on the lack of hate crime tracking in New Zealand (46:50), her story on the Taliban negotiations (52:20) and what it was like to rush into the reporting on the Christchurch attack (57:15). Also, stick around for the lightning round (1:02:07).
Here are links to some of the things we talked about:
Charlotte's story on "fixing" intersex children - http://bit.ly/2olxAGO
Her story on hate crimes in New Zealand - https://reut.rs/2AMTFkm
Her story on Afghan women's fears of Taliban return - https://reut.rs/2nlxWwR
The behind-the-scenes story on her Chirstchurch reporting - https://reut.rs/2Onzphi
Radio New Zealand - http://bit.ly/31UdAK4
The High Low on Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2o62wel
The Maori weekly magazine E-Tangata - http://bit.ly/2LNqVhC
Texas Monthly story on teen friends caught in school shooting - http://bit.ly/31Ph9Bn
Rukmini Callimachi on Twitter - http://bit.ly/2Vfw7hz
Veronica Guerin on IMDb - https://imdb.to/31W2HaQ
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Sep 22, 2019
Sunday Sep 22, 2019
The Taliban has interns. David Stout a correspondent in Pakistan for Agence France Presse (AFP) looked into the communications apparatus of the Islamic fundamentalist group, only to find it operates much like any media organization, unpaid interns and all. We also discuss how after growing up in small town New Mexico, Dave pingponged around Asia before landing in more-idyllic-than-you’d-expect Islamabad.
We talk about the situation in Kashmir (2:10), being raised in Hobbes, New Mexico (6:07), an early does of journalism rejection before finding his way in college (9:30), moving to Thailand/Vietnam and getting his start as a professional journalist (12:00), starting to work on the editing desk for AFP in Hong Kong (17:01), getting the gig in Pakistan (22:10), the story on Kung Fu in Hong Kong he couldn't quite bag (31:15), his story on the Taliban's media operations (34:05), and finish on the lightening round (39:20).
Here are links to some of the things we talk about:
Dave's story on the Taliban's propaganda war - https://yhoo.it/2ktcSD4
Pakistani newspaper Dawn - http://bit.ly/2kMduEa
Lunch with the FT - https://on.ft.com/2muj4LR
"A Kingdom of Their Own" by Joshua Partlow - https://amzn.to/2mlp0qe
David Halberstam bio on Wikipedia - http://bit.ly/2msAf0i
A Year of Living Dangerously on IMDB - https://imdb.to/2m836Xl
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org