Moroccan and American journalism students meeting for the first time in February 2012, Rabat, Morocco

At Round Earth Media (REM), we’re all about partnership. Too often, American journalists parachute into a country for just a few weeks of reporting, failing to grasp the nuances and complexities of what is, for them, a foreign country.  Round Earth Media journalists work differently.  REM’s American journalists collaborate with the most promising young journalists in the countries where REM is reporting.  Together, in equal partnership, they produce stories for top-tier media in the U.S. and abroad.  It’s a new model for producing original, reliable, unbiased reporting.

The Moroccan-American Journalism Partnership is the first time that this model has been applied to student journalists.  For more than two months, six student pairs — an American partnered with a Moroccan — worked to produce what one of the Moroccan journalists called “a mosaic bowl of articles” ranging, from the topic of racism in Morocco to the Soulaliyate women’s movement.  Vital to its success was the support and enthusiasm for this program from ISIC professor Khadija Zizi and  her colleagues at ISIC (L’Institut Supérieure de l’Information et de la Communication, the journalism school in Rabat, Morocco).

Aside from the journalism they produced, the students say they learned a lot about their mutual societies and cultures. Mehdi Sejjari, one of the Moroccan journalism students, was paired with American journalism student Eboni Bell to write a profile story on a February 20th activist (Morocco’s “Arab Spring” movement).  But, well into the project, the activist had second thoughts and refused to agree to be interviewed if the article was published in Morocco (the Moroccan students are publishing their articles in a student on-line magazine). Such is the nature of doing journalism in Morocco, challenges which  the students learned about first-hand.   Mehdi Sejjari collected comments from some of the students and starts with his partner, Eboni Bell.

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Photo: Kirsten Kortebein in the New York Times

Our journalism students are what amounts to the only working newsroom of U.S. reporters and photo-journalists in Morocco.   When they arrived in January, we told the students  – no guarantees – that if their work was good enough we would help place their stories and photos in top-tier U.S. media.  Jackie Kantor and Kirsten Kortebein’s compelling story  is the first major placement from our inaugural – and ground-breaking – journalism program.  HERE”S ”On the Run in the Sahara, for 153 Miles” in The New York Times.

This is proof positive that with mentoring from a team of journalists affiliated with Round Earth Media – along with academics and experts affiliated with SIT Study Abroad —  students can produce journalism at the very highest levels of our profession and major US media will publish and broadcast their work.

Our program comes as U.S. newsrooms both big and small are contracting and closing and as the desire for stories outside U.S. borders is greater than ever before.   With the professional and expert guidance of U.S. journalists and in-country experts, our students are helping fill that information gap.   And, this inaugural program isn’t over yet!  Look for more stories soon and, please,  tell any aspiring undergraduate journalism student to sign up NOW for our fall program – deadline approaching!  One more thing:  if you like what we’re doing, please give to Round Earth Media to support journalism from the next generation of global reporters and photographers – you can help make sure there is one!

Countryside near Fez

We’re back from a week in rural Morocco.  At least half of all Moroccans live in the countryside, facing challenges around education, health care and economic survival.  But that is not the whole story.   As our students discovered, rural Morocco is the heart and soul of the country.

“I’m a city girl and I never knew why places like this are important.  Now I know.”

That’s what one of our students told me after our stay in the stunningly beautiful village of Sbaa Rouadi, near the ancient imperial city of Fez.  Look for the students’ vivid reporting in our next blog post – they’ll take you to Sbaa Rouadi, a visit I don’t think you’ll soon forget.

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Ashton Songer and Faten Maarouf

Antinnea Skipwith and Meryam Boutouraout

As part of our commitment to the future of global journalism, we are pioneering an exciting new model of journalism education, one that reflects the need for unbiased, well-researched, responsibly reported global news and information. What is this new model?    Round Earth’s mission is to partner US journalists with journalists in the countries where we are working.  With that model in mind, we are partnering American journalism students studying on SIT’s program in Rabat, Morocco, Field Studies in Journalism and New Media, with Moroccan journalism students at the University of Mohammed V in Rabat (ISIC). In pairs of two, these journalism students, one Moroccan and one American, are working to develop and report stories in all media formats.

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