Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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International Journalism
Exchange
What a chance to know America
Learning about a free press — something my colleagues
and I may never have — was wonderful, but teaching about the Kosovo crisis
made the experience indelible
By Agron Bajrami
When I received the e-mail with the note that I had been chosen among
the 10 journalist-editors to participate in journalist-exchange program
in U.S., the first thing that came to my mind was “what a chance to see
America.”
At that time, I didn’t think that there were too many things that I
could learn from American newspapers that would be of great use in Kosovo
in times like these. I just thought that this experience would be of great
benefit to me after couple of years.
Well, I was wrong.
The meetings that we (the participants of program) had in Washington
with the editors of The Washington Post, USA Today, The News & Observer
of Raleigh, N.C., The Roanoke (Va.) Times, and a lot of other newspapers,
were enlightening. The tours of the Post and USA Today buildings and desks
were a special occasion to see the huge newspapers from the inside. Washington
itself was interesting to see.
The huge door of the American journalistic experience was starting to
open for me.
The attachment
My newspaper attachment was at the Deseret News, the Salt Lake City-based
evening daily. The first thought that came to my mind after being told
about the place where I was supposed to spend 4 weeks was “Salt Lake City
— the home of Utah Jazz.” At the time, that was all what I knew about the
Great Salt Lake and the capital of Utah.
My hosts at the Deseret News were the nicest people that you could find.
I will always be grateful to them for making my stay so comfortable that,
when the day to leave came, I didn’t feel like going.
During my four-week stay, I accompanied a lot of journalists on their
assignments like covering sporting events, country music concerts, the
senior legislature, courts and police. I also took part in editorial board
meetings and staff meetings. I was happy to find that the standards of
journalistic ethics and objectivity in the U.S. were about the same as
the ones that my colleagues and I maintain at Koha Ditore.
The Deseret News itself seemed to be representative of an American big
local daily with the tendency of covering more international news than
most local U.S. newspapers. That is another reason why I could relate to
the process of producing the News.
Most topics covered by the News were of local interest, but my homeland
was on the front page far too often because of the war. At that point the
program’s intensity doubled — I was asked my opinions and gave explanations
to the editorial board about the crisis. I was asked to write editorials
and even gave an interview, which ended up as a headline on the front page.
The end
The last part of the program took place in New York, where we had some
more meetings and luncheons with prominent American editors.
The Big Apple was the end of the road in one way, but just the beginning
in other ways. With the conclusion of the exchange program, a new, much
wider window of journalistic perception opened for me.
Coming from war-torn Kosovo, a trip to the U.S. helped me a lot — personally
and professionally. I learned a lot during my six weeks in the U.S. — the
way that journalists and editors work in a free society — something that
my colleagues and I might never have the chance to experience.
I didn’t mention any names of my hosts and people that I met during
my stay because there were so many nice people, that it would take more
than a 600-word article to write just their names. Without them, though
— the people from ICFJ, The Freedom Forum, ASNE, the Deseret News — it
would have been impossible for me to gain the knowledge and experience
from this program that I did
Thank you…
Bajrami is assistant editor-in-chief of Koha Ditore in Prishtina,
Kosovo, and spent his summer at the Deseret News in Salt Lake City.
