March 27, 2001 - Inside Medill News: Morocco RPCV Sarah Chayes Reports on Life in the Trenches

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Morocco: Peace Corps Morocco : The Peace Corps in Morocco: March 27, 2001 - Inside Medill News: Morocco RPCV Sarah Chayes Reports on Life in the Trenches

By Admin1 (admin) on Sunday, October 20, 2002 - 1:02 pm: Edit Post

Morocco RPCV Sarah Chayes Reports on Life in the Trenches





Caption: Sarah Chayes of NPR and Adam Brooks of the BBC, after the fall of Kabul, but before the Taliban fell, in a town just inside Afghanistan called Spin Boldak. People on the walls stare at the journalists while they apply sunscreen to their faces.

Read and comment on this story from Inside Medill News on Morocco RPCV Sarah Chayes and how she practices journalism at:

Chayes Reports on Life in the Trenches*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.



Chayes Reports on Life in the Trenches

by Kari Neumeyer, MSJ01

PARIS -- The first lesson of the Spring 2001 Paris seminars came March 19 from a National Public Radio reporter who said if we were going to cover a war, we should really cover the war.

"The foreign press corps in Kosovo didn't do our job; we sat on the border," NPR's Sarah Chayes told our group of 11 graduate students about to begin 10-week residencies abroad at various sites, including the Associated Press in Jerusalem.

Chayes, an American, did freelance radio pieces for six years before NPR hired her to be their sole Paris-based correspondent three years ago. She said she can't imagine doing anything else, but journalism wasn't her first career choice. "I really wanted to work in the public prosecutor's office in Kansas City," she said.

Chayes was supposed to speak to the class Tuesday but had to reschedule because NPR asked her to go to Macedonia to cover the Albanian insurgency. She said she prefers being in the trenches to covering the "Aren't the French quaint?" beat.

"I don't want to spend my life entertaining upper-middle-class Americans with the foibles of upper-middle-class Europeans," she said.

Although she said she sometimes falls victim to the "existential blues" of foreign correspondents, wondering if what she does has any impact on anything, she added, "If I have obliged a certain number of Americans to realize that America isn't the only country in the world then I'm satisfied."

It's lonely to be a bureau of one, Chayes said. She has zero personal life. "There is no conceivable way I can have kids," she said.

"I have tended to avoid journalists because I was afraid of the homogeneity of perspective," she added. Still, on the occasions she collaborated with a print reporter, she said she felt an intellectual explosion.

Chayes told the broadcast students to avoid the tendency to structure a story before they've shot it. "Don't prepare," she said. "You should learn something when you go out reporting."

She added that preparation should consist of making sure you have enough cable and tape. "Reporting is a traumatic experience anyway," she said.

And though she said she doesn't like it when The New York Times breaks a story she's been working on, making it look like she picked it up from them, she said she doesn't think scoops counted.

Chayes advised students not to use someone else`s life story as a model for their own journalistic careers, but she did urge us to challenge themselves. "Presented with an option, take the hard way," she said."Every time I've backed off of something that's a bit spooky I've regretted it."



Click on a link below for more stories on PCOL

Top Stories and Discussion on PCOL
Peace Corps Volunteers Safe in Ivory CoastA Profile of Gaddi Vasquez
Sargent Shriver and the Politics of Life911:  A Different America
USA Freedom Corps - "paved with good intentions"PCV hostage rescued from terrorists
GAO reports on Volunteer Safety and SecurityPeace Corps out of Russia?
Help the New Peace Corps Bill pass CongressUSA Freedom Cops TIPS Program


Top Stories and Discussion on PCOL
Senior Staff Appointments at Peace Corps HeadquartersFor the Peace Corps Fallen
Senator Dodd holds Hearings on New Peace Corps LegislationThe Debate over the Peace Corps Fund
Why the Peace Corps needs a Fourth GoalThe Peace Corps 40th plus one
The Case for Peace Corps IndependenceThe Controversy over Lariam
The Peace Corps and Homeland SecurityDirector Vasquez meets with RPCVs
RPCV Congressmen support Peace Corps' autonomyPeace Corps Expansion:  The Numbers Game?
When should the Peace Corps return to Afghanistan?Peace Corps Cartoons



Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Service; COS - Morocco; COS - Afghanistan

PCOL1186
93

.

By ann jansen (vor-207.cloudnet.com - 209.188.109.207) on Monday, August 23, 2004 - 5:46 pm: Edit Post

Hello, I am looking for a contact with someone who works with the people of Morocco. I am writing a book on Africa which includes many of the usual things in a textbook about a country. I would like to include stories on current day missionaries/volunteers and would like to include the Peace Corp in this book.

Please forward this to anyone who could help me.
Thanks,
Ann Jansen


Add a Message


This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Username:  
Password:
E-mail: