Foreign Correspondence is a podcast that brings you hour-long interviews with journalists around the world hosted by Jake Spring.
Episodes
Sunday Sep 08, 2019
Sunday Sep 08, 2019
Brian Rosenthal (@brianmrosenthal) is proof that outstanding local journalism can get you places. *THE* place in fact - The New York Times. Brian walks us through the story that got him there, a bombshell of a report on how the state of Texas systematically denied special education to 250,000 children. That story was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and landed him at the Times. He's also the star of Episode 2 of Hulu/FX's The Weekly and he tells us how was first put onto that story. Hint: It involves Michael Cohen.
He discusses growing up as a twin in Indiana (3:40), going to Northwestern where we met (8:27), his long string of journalism internships (15:47), choosing to work at The Seattle Times over The Washington Post (22:53), moving to The Houston Chronicle (27:56), how he got onto and landed his big special education story (29:17), how that story blew up and got him to the NYT (44:03), his story on speculation and abuse of the taxi medallion system in New York (52:33), and job advice for young journalists (1:02:47). And we pick his brain in the lightening round (1:07:21).
Here are links to some of the things we talk about:
Jake on Front Burner podcast on the Amazon fires - http://bit.ly/2lC83aW
Brian on Ep. 2 (The Myth of the Medallion) of The Weekly - https://hulu.tv/2lBHKld
The Houston Chronicle series Denied about special education denials - http://bit.ly/2k4HMRZ
Part 1 of the NYT's investigation into the taxi industry - https://nyti.ms/2lEESUF
MLB Trade Rumors - http://bit.ly/2kxPzYP
An Unbelievable Story of Rape on ProPublica - http://bit.ly/2k9Yb7U
The Atlantic story on arriving late to the airport - http://bit.ly/2k5pOyN
Vice's "Charlottesville: Race and Terror" video - http://bit.ly/2lEw29g
Walt Bogdanich on Twitter - @waltbogdanich
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or tweet about the podcast with #foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Aug 25, 2019
Sunday Aug 25, 2019
Strap in for a hero's journey through the world of Indonesian terrorism. Charlie Campbell (@charliecamp6ell) of Time magazine walks us through the series of strange turns that took him to that took him to a prison, the Ivy League for Jihadists before landing an interview with the first female suicide bomber (she was not successful and therefor alive). Charlie takes us all over Asia as he walks us through his career.
We discuss early days from family to his first taste of journalism in Buenos Aires (1:59), cutting his teeth in blue collar London journalism (10:44), moving to Southeast Asia and reporting on Myanmar (17:34), becoming a Time magazine intern at 31 in Hong Kong (25:30), odds and ends of working at Time (31:10), the "story that got away" on human trafficking (41:06), his story about Islamic extremism in Indonesia(46:21), and end with the Lightning Round (59:50).
Here are links to some of the things we talk about:
Time story on Indonesia’s First Female Suicide Bomber - http://bit.ly/2L6gowv
NYT interactive feature on how Notre Dame was saved - https://nyti.ms/2ziXpZY
The First Casualty by Phillip Knightley - https://amzn.to/2PbntBf
The Zanzibar Chest by Aiden Hartley - https://amzn.to/2L7iUCD
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or tweet about the podcast with #foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Aug 11, 2019
Sunday Aug 11, 2019
Have you ever wondered what it's like for a journalist to work with sensitive sources who could get fired or go to jail? We get right into that with our guest Koh Gui Qing (@GQReuters) of Reuters in New York. After Singapore, Australia and China, her latest turn as an investigative reporter in New York was set in motion by an unexpected tip off and is "the kind of story that makes you fall off your chair," as Gui Qing would say. Since then, Gui Qing has become the go-to person you call when you need to send a reporter to investigate far-flung, high-stakes stories.
We discuss the hell of a week that she's had (2:00), growing up and studying in Singapore (6:30), joining Reuters and reporting on your home country (13:06), moving to Australia (18:31), the chaos and craziness in China (20:08), her special report on China quietly buying up radio stations around the world (24:37), her Pulitzer finalist story on Chinese students cheating their way through U.S. colleges (32:58), her investigation into a Chinese executive accused of rape in Minneapolis (38:17) and the infamous Lightening Round (45:07).
Here are links to some of the things we talk about:
Exposed: China's covert global radio network - https://reut.rs/33qQcVS
This industry helps Chinese cheat their way into & through US colleges - https://reut.rs/2Z4Oavj
The night a Chinese billionaire was accused of rape in Minnesota - https://reut.rs/2yNhpUB
Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 by Stephen Kotkin - https://amzn.to/2KDzHgr
NYTimes investigation into Trump's taxes - https://nyti.ms/31tulLx
Hiroshima by John Hersey - https://amzn.to/2OYSlVE
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh - https://amzn.to/2MRzo4s
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or tweet about the podcast with #foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Jul 28, 2019
Sunday Jul 28, 2019
Is being a news producer on Netflix’s Patriot Act with Hasan Minahj technically journalism? Who cares, it’s pretty f***ing cool. Our guest Meredith Clark (@MeredithLClark) hails from the same hometown as our host and guides us from McFarland, Wisconsin through her lengthy list of credits as a journalist taking us to some parts of the industry we have not been: fact-checking at Rolling Stone, opinionated political journalism, MSNBC, refinery29, Glamour magazine and more. Oh and don’t worry, we do talk about Eurovision too.
Here are links to some of the things we talk about:
Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj on Netflix: http://bit.ly/2Ooeqwl
The A.V. Club pop culture website: http://bit.ly/30W2O5d
Barry on HBO: https://itsh.bo/2On9vvu
Rosa Luxembark on Instagram: http://bit.ly/2OmF6hb
Nellie Bly on Wikipedia: http://bit.ly/2ZfKR13
"My four months as a private prison guard" by Shane Bauer: http://bit.ly/2GxWd9h
Shattered Glass on IMDb: https://imdb.to/32TSOLA
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or tweet about the podcast with #foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Jul 14, 2019
Sunday Jul 14, 2019
Let’s talk about goons baby, let’s talk about goons and me. Let’s talk about all the good things and the bad things goons could be. Our guest this episode is Joseph Campbell (@detectivejoe88), a journalist for Reuters Video News in Beijing. Lugging around his camera to report the biggest news of the day, Joe has become an expert on the goons who seek (not very successfully) to intimidate him. But it’s not all serious. This is probably the most colorful interview to date: we discuss his features on dog cloning and people living in caves.
We discuss growing up in Indiana (4:30), studying in Japan in high school and traveling in Asia (12:25), sketchy border crossings (18:35), starting at Reuters and the evolution of China reporting (20:45), his story on cave dwellers in China (28:21), his story on dog cloning (36:10), dealing with goons (40:26), his planned move to Singapore (46:00), and THE LIGHTENING ROUND (48:52).
Here are links to some of the things we talk about:
Joe's story/video on Chinese cave dwellers - https://reut.rs/2XXYrJ6
Joe's story/video on dog cloning - https://reut.rs/2JsvlcB
Battles of the New Republic by Prashant Jha - https://amzn.to/2xPxKY5
Crimetown podcast - http://bit.ly/2G7fjCM
Photojournalist Robert Capa on Wikipedia - http://bit.ly/30sS4ej
Ace in the Hole movie with Kirk Douglas on IMDB - https://imdb.to/32oXCIo
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or tweet about the podcast with #foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Jun 30, 2019
Sunday Jun 30, 2019
Hermit state North Korea has to stay afloat somehow. As Financial Times reporter Don Weinland (@donweinland) found out, that means managing ships through Hong Kong. In this interview, we navigate the twists and turns that got Don from the deserts of Nevada to digging through shipping records for the UK’s premier financial newspaper. Unlike my first three guests who were journalists from early on, Don was a late comer to the industry. Bouncing around Asia for a decade, his story eventually takes us through four separate publications.
We discuss growing up (4:30), going to China (13:52), his start in journalism in Cambodia (25:12), some super inside baseball about working at China Economic Review (32:55), a stint at the South China Morning Post (48:32) and finally landing at the FT. That’s all before getting into North Korean shipping (56:07). And then we get a little looser in the lightening round (1:04:35).
Here are links to some of the things we talk about:
An explainer on Hutongs - http://bit.ly/2YuWSz2
FT story “North Korea’s opaque trading network keeps economy afloat” - https://on.ft.com/2XcL5Jn
The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk - https://amzn.to/2XddAXk
New Yorker profile of Glenn Greenwald - http://bit.ly/323CeIu
Author Michael Lewis’ website - http://bit.ly/2YoZUoO
News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - https://amzn.to/2LprXRf
Bloomberg story on the Rio Tinto executive jailed in China - https://bloom.bg/2IZfUsd
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or tweet about the podcast with #foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Jun 16, 2019
Sunday Jun 16, 2019
Camilla Costa (@_camillacosta) is kind of a big deal. As a reporter for the BBC in Brazil, she broke the story of the Zika virus outbreak wide open. She's now just started as an data journalist for the BBC at the mothership in London, but has an extremely varied career before that. She's worked for Brazil's premier magazine and the top newspaper and had a streak of doing journalism for kids. We also discuss the cake scene from the movie Spotlight.
Here are links to some of the other things we talked about:
BBC video for the 100th anniversary of theory of relativity - http://bit.ly/31Dg2oJ
BBC article on Brazil's connection to the theory (portuguese) - https://bbc.in/2WRokdJ
BBC interactive on global migrants - https://bbc.in/2LKHFbd
Camilla's first BBC story on Zika (portuguese) - https://bbc.in/2HnBDZS
Lapham's Quarterly - http://bit.ly/lapquar
Allan Little - https://twitter.com/alittl
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or tweet about the podcast with #foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Sunday Jun 02, 2019
Sunday Jun 02, 2019
Paul Carsten (@paulcarsten) covers Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, for Reuters news agency from the capital city of Abuja. Hailing from the north of England, we talk about how he got to Oxford, Beijing and ultimately Abuja. Paul talks about a piece he did in the run-up to the Nigerian election on a grisly Islamic State massacre of dozens of people, contradicting a government statement that only three people had died. Since he's an old friend, there are also some goofs to lighten the mood.
Any opinions expressed in this podcast are personal and do not reflect the views of Reuters news.
Here are links to some of the things we talked about:
Reuters report on Islamic State attack - https://reut.rs/2VGB9qy
The Ringer - https://www.theringer.com/
Dissect podcast - https://dissectpodcast.com
Ben Taub - https://twitter.com/bentaub91
Dispatches by Michael Herr - https://amzn.to/2w37b0I
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or tweet about the podcast with #foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org
Tuesday May 07, 2019
Tuesday May 07, 2019
Nomaan Merchant (@NomaanMerchant) covers immigration for the Associated Press in Houston, Texas. We discuss how he visited the Chicago Tribune in middle school, our shared experience as student journalists and how he ended up working for AP for a stint in China. He also walks us through his reporting a piece showing the human impact of an ICE immigration raid not just on those arrested but their families and the larger community they lived in. The piece was part of a package nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Here are links to some of the things we talked about:
AP investigation into sexual assault by police officers - bit.ly/appolice
AP exclusive analysis of China pouring $24 bln into golden visa - bit.ly/APgoldenvisa
AP story on immigration raid, part of Pulitzer-nominated package - bit.ly/APiceraid
The Athletic - theathletic.com
Seymour Hersh, wikipedia bio - bit.ly/SHershwiki
Reporter: A Memoir by Seymour Hersh - bit.ly/ReporterSH
The Wire, Season 5 on HBO - bit.ly/hbowire5
The Houston Chronicle series Abuse of Faith - http://bit.ly/faithabuse
Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or tweet about the podcast with #foreignpod
Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats
From: freemusicarchive.org