A Voice For the Voiceless

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The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Courtney Radsch and the Middle East Reporter (MER)

Courtney is pursuing her Master of Science in Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where she has served as the Managing Editor of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. She received her B.A. in communications with honors from UC Berkeley. Before coming to Washington, she worked as Assistant Communications Director forthe Girl Scouts in California.

Courtney’s background in communications, coupled with her experience working at a non-profit, made her a valuable addition to AP’s intern program. Her host organization was the Middle East Reporter, an independent organization that publishes a daily English-language digest of Arabic news from Beirut and is setting up a training center for journalists in the Middle East.


Courtney taking time out from war-torn Beirut.

Courtney herself summed up the experience as follows:

“As an intern for the Middle East Reporter (MER), I focused on three projects:1) efforts to create a hands-on practical training center for journalists in the Middle East, in conjunction with the Center for International Journalists in Washington, D.C.; 2) helping MER make the transition to an online business in order to free up resources for the training center; and 3) assisting with the day-to-day operations of MER, including editing, fact-checking and writing.

“With respect to the training center I met with Tefik Mishlawi to identify potential sources of funding and define the goals of the center. We reviewed NGOs and corporate sources of funding and decided to target companies like Times Mirror and The New York Times since these organizations would stand to benefit from the center, and their money would not be linked any government. (Remaining completely independent is central to Tewfik’s ideals of a free and independent press. He would not want to jeopardize his reputation for exemplary journalism by having the center associated, even indirectly, with a government.) He did not wish to develop the curriculum until securing funding. I also liased with staff at the CIJ in Washington to discuss how I could contribute to the search for funding. Upon their suggestion I decided to write an article discussing the need for a Middle East training center by interviewing journalists in the region.

“I also worked extensively on developing an on-line archive, electronic payment system, and redesigning the MER website. By terminating the print publication and offering it solely online MER can save thousands of dollars a year and free both monetary resources and time to focus on the training center. To this end I did a comprehensive analysis of MER’s website and developed design and functionality recommendations which I then implemented in conjunction with MER’s website administrator. I designed a search engine that will eventually give access to their 26 years of detailed reports on the region, which can be a major resource for both journalists and diplomats.

“I also put together a publicity campaign since MER has never advertised or solicited subscriptions. Before and during the war, when nearly every country had its embassy in Beirut and it was the center of diplomacy in the Middle East, MER counted most of them among its subscribers. But most were forced out as the war dragged on and did not return after it ended. MER’s subscriber base has never recovered.

“Through my work on developing supporting material for the training center I honed my interviewing, writing and research skills and developed a greater understanding for what being “culturally sensitive” really entails. I also developed a network of professional contacts with journalists and NGOs in the region.

“The Daily Star: As part of my internship with MER, Tewfik wanted me to learn how a newspaper works and to get hands-on experience working in the daily press. A couple of weeks into my internship he arranged for me to work at The Daily Star after I finished at MER. I loved it so much that the editor of the regional section asked me to replace one of the news editors while she was away. The first two weeks I spent working with the four new editors and learning how they put together the regional section of the paper.

“The Daily Star comprises a Lebanese and a regional section. The regional section is eight pages, five of which are the responsibility of the news editors. The paper relies primarily on the newswire services for the news content, which focuses on Arab, Islamic and Middle Eastern topics. Each day I went in and spent an hour reading all the wire stories that had come in since 10:00 pm the previous evening (the time when we put the paper to bed). I would review the stories based on regional searches and then by country, from Afghanistan to Iran to Tunisia and Sudan and everything in between. I pulled the stories I thought were most important and arranged them in packages in preparation for the news editors meeting.

“During the meeting we would go page-by-page and decide what the theme was and what stories would be on which pages. Then we would each take a page to put together and layout. This meant reading the different versions of the same story from the wires, compiling one story from many, and sometimes writing a story. I would also choose the picture. Once the stories were done I worked with a designer to put the stories on the page. In the process, I learned a lot about the logistics of newspaper design and aesthetics. Then I would proof my page and start to work on the front page, which was always done last since new developments in Iraq, Palestine/Israel, and other topics tended to come in at the last minute.

“While at The Daily Star I confronted the prospect of self-censorship and political pressure, and learned how to work as a team in a high-pressure deadline situation. I also gained a lot of practice making news decisions and writing news stories.

“I discovered that many of the newspapers I respected as paragons of objectivity and balance do not deserve such praise, and that everyone has an agenda.”

“During the summer, I discovered that I am very interested in journalism, and perhaps in advocacy journalism. Working for a respected and independent paper in a region that is often portrayed in a hostile manner by the American media made me realize that even the most lauded media organizations must make difficult decisions about what to publish, what words to use and which details to include where. I discovered that many of the newspapers I respected as paragons of objectivity and balance do not deserve such praise, and that everyone has an agenda. Working for The Daily Star made me realize that journalism is definitely a career path I want to investigate further. Working for MER made me think about working for a media advocacy organization.

Tewfik Mishlawi, the founder and Editor of the Middle East Reporter reported back favorably on Courtney’s internship:

“We enjoyed having Courtney with us this summer. She is a very bright and helpful young lady. I hope the experience she had in Beirut was beneficial to her as it was for us. There was a chance for both sides to learn from each other. I wish I had more time to spend with her, but she did her best to update our web site and proof read our newsletter on a daily basis.

“Courtney is a very energetic person whose top priority is to seek knowledge and information wherever she can find it. She traveled to Aleppo one time to see what it's like to be in Syria, a closed society, and compare it with Lebanon, a completely open society. People who came to know her continue to think highly of her and say is a very pleasant girl.”

Courtney Radsch has continued to write for the Daily Star since her return to Georgetown. She covered a briefing B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights monitoring organization, arranged by the Georgetown Human Rights Forum.

• Read Courtney's blog.
• Email Courtney
  
• Read Courtney’s articles for the Daily Star: "Pro-Palestinian Lobby to Harness Diplomatic and Political Power in Washington" and  "New Poll Reveals that Majority of Palestinians and Israelis share a desire for Peace and Security"