By Jena Lynde-Smith
Going and doing something is always worth doing – but it’s not uncomplicated
This the advice that journalism alumna, Barbara Plett Usher, has for students who may want to pursue a job reporting abroad.
Plett Usher visited Carleton recently to present her lecture Upset or Reset: Trump’s Middle East Parameters. She assessed Trump’s plan for the future of the Middle East, his “deal of the century,” and the impact it is having, and may continue to have, on various regions. She provided a thorough birds-eye view of the current political landscape of the Middle East – an interpretation derived from her own experience as the State Department Correspondent for the BBC.
Graduating with a bachelor of journalism degree in 1991, Plett Usher said her original goal was to land a job at a big newspaper. When this was unsuccessful, she decided to travel.
“I didn’t want to travel to a bunch of different countries – I just wanted to go to a place that was interesting and hang out there, and try a bit of journalism,” she said.
Her first destination was South Africa. She stayed there for about four months until she connected with a freelance journalist in Egypt. This carried her to Cairo – where she then planned to spend a short time.
“After the three months, during which I made no money at all, I didn’t really have anything to go back to. So I thought ‘oh I’ll hang out a bit more,’” she said.
While she was in Cairo, she said she was told that to succeed in freelance journalism that she should be doing radio.
“I had only ever thought of myself as a print journalist, but if you’re freelancing, radio can keep you going. You do short, sharp hits and you can do quite a lot of them,” she said. “With print, all the news agencies do the news – and you do a feature here and there, but with radio, they need a voice and they need somebody on the ground. So you’re actually doing the news.”
Plett Usher said that switching to radio is what began opening up doors for her career. She began freelancing for a number of organizations and one of her freelance roles was as a back-up for a BBC correspondent.
It was through this arrangement that she was given the opportunity to travel even more. She started applying for jobs with the BBC and began landing a number of foreign positions. These placements had her reporting in places like Jordan, Jerusalem, and Iraq. From there she was placed in Pakistan for four years, and then the UN for another four years. Shortly after that she was hired in Washington as the State Department Correspondent. She is currently involved in a five-month project in Jerusalem.
“It’s not like I decided I was going to go and be a foreign correspondent. I decided I was going to go and try it out and then things happened so that I kept staying,” she said. “I put myself in that space and it opened up opportunities for me.”
Plett Usher said that students contemplating foreign reporting should explore freelancing.
“The chances of you getting hired by a news organization and sent overseas are less than they used to be. Also, as news organizations contract there may be more opportunities for people who place themselves in the field and can just do that job,” she said.
She also said there are many factors to take into consideration when deciding to travel abroad to do journalism. When choosing where you want to report, she said to look at a place where there is a news story and a place with access to communications. She also said to factor in the cost of living. More seriously, she pressed the importance of security as something to be considered.
“Post-9/11 wars have changed the security situation for journalists. They’re more in the line of fire, targets for kidnapping, all that sort of stuff,” she said. “Can the company that you’re freelancing for sponsor you? Will they give you security insurance? What if you’re kidnapped, who is going to speak out for you?”
Plett Usher’s career didn’t just fall into her lap. She put herself out there and made it happen for herself by staying open-minded. She urges students or recent graduates to just try things out – especially if they are not quite sure what they want to do.
“Go for a month. Put your feet in and see what the situation is and then come back,” she said.
See some of Plett Usher’s reporting at bbc.com/news or follow her on Twitter @BBCBarbaraPlett.
Want to know what other journalism alumni are doing? Check out some of their profiles here.
Monday, November 11, 2019 in Journalism News
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