McGill Lecture Speaker Encourages Foreign Reporting

By Hannah Keating

“The business we love is still there and still necessary,” Hannah Allam told the audience today in her speech addressing the importance of foreign reporting.

Allam was the 30^th presenter of the McGill Lecture which is sponsored by the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The McGill Lecture is held each year to honor Pulitzer Prize winning Ralph McGill for his journalistic courage while editor and publisher of The Atlanta Constitution as well as to highlight current courageous journalists. Allam is one such journalist.

Allam, Middle East Bureau Chief for McClatchy Newspapers, spoke about the challenges the newspaper industry is currently facing and how those challenges are threatening foreign reporting. With the internet attracting a majority of news seekers, newspapers are finding it more and more difficult to make money.

“Not all papers can afford foreign staffs, but we need them,” Allam said, “It’s the public that loses when we don’t have vital and accurate information.”

After the start of the war in 2003, Allam became Baghdad Bureau Chief for Knight Ridder which was later acquired by McClatchy Newspapers. Beginning at the age of 25, she spent the next two years living in Iraq leading a 16-member staff as a foreign correspondent.

The role of a foreign correspondent is “equal parts watchdog and interpreter” Allam told the audience of about 120 that had gathered in the University of Georgia’s Miller Learning Center to hear her speak. Without foreign media, Allam believes the American people will not have the information necessary to hold our leaders accountable.

Allam quoted civil rights activist Ida B. Wells in saying, “The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.”

After spending two years in Iraq, Allam saw some improvements, but does not believe that the United States is close to “victory” despite what American politicians are saying.

Allam does not see the victory in millions of Iraqi people still not being able to live in their homes or Iraqi people only being able to use two or three hours of electricity a day.

“This is when out watchdog role is more important than ever,” Allam said, “things just aren’t as rosy as they may seem right now in Iraq.”

In the Question and Answer session following Allam’s speech she seemed uncertain of the future that foreign reporting would have. She told the audience she would love to return to her foreign bureau if it still existed when she finished her year long leave as a Neiman Fellow studying at Harvard University. “I hope I’ll still have a bureau,” Allam said.