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Peter Copeland

Interview: Foreign Press Correspondents USA

March 11, 2022 by Peter Copeland

Three core values of quality journalism: speed, accuracy, and fairness

 

Excerpt from the October 25, 2021 interview:

“Throughout your career, you trained hundreds of young reporters and college interns. How can aspiring journalists set a solid foundation for a successful career? What are the principles they ought to follow? 

After I wrote the first draft of my book about learning to be a reporter, I went back over the manuscript to make note of the specific lessons about journalism I had learned from each experience. I counted about 200 different lessons, which was far too many to list. So, I boiled that down to about 20 lessons, which still seemed like a lot. I finally decided on three principles or core values of quality journalism: speed, accuracy, and fairness…”

Read the full interview on ForeignPress.org

Peter Copeland is a former foreign correspondent and Washington bureau chief. His most recent book is Finding the News: Adventures of a Young Reporter.

Recent Posts

  • Interview: Foreign Press Correspondents USA
  • She Went to War Book Release Announcement
  • In Maria Hinojosa’s New Memoir, Once I Was You, A Journalist Covers Her Own Story   
  • Book Review: The Whistleblower, the Reporter, and the Life-and-Death Consequences of Exposing Secrets
  • Finding the News wins first place in the memoir category of The Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2020

Filed Under: Blog Posts

She Went to War Book Release Announcement

December 10, 2020 by Peter Copeland

Just released: 30th anniversary edition of Rhonda Cornum’s Gulf War POW story.

She Went to War: The Rhonda Cornum Story

Deep inside Iraqi territory, a U.S. Army helicopter on a combat search-and-rescue mission was shot down with eight Americans aboard. Five of them were killed instantly; the three survivors were captured by Saddam Hussein’s elite Republican Guard. One of the survivors was Maj. Rhonda Cornum – Army officer, helicopter pilot, physician, and mother of a 14-year-old girl. She Went to War is her story – a remarkable tale of courage, determination, and pride.

(Peter Copeland is a journalist and author, most recently of Finding the News: Adventures of a Young Reporter.

Peter Copeland is a former foreign correspondent and Washington bureau chief. His most recent book is Finding the News: Adventures of a Young Reporter.

Recent Posts

  • Interview: Foreign Press Correspondents USA
  • She Went to War Book Release Announcement
  • In Maria Hinojosa’s New Memoir, Once I Was You, A Journalist Covers Her Own Story   
  • Book Review: The Whistleblower, the Reporter, and the Life-and-Death Consequences of Exposing Secrets
  • Finding the News wins first place in the memoir category of The Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2020

Filed Under: Uncategorized

In Maria Hinojosa’s New Memoir, Once I Was You, A Journalist Covers Her Own Story   

November 15, 2020 by Peter Copeland

Maria Hinojosa

Once I Was You

Maria Hinojosa

Buy the book

Check out Maria’s news organization

Journalist Maria Hinojosa has written two books in one: her own deeply personal story of coming to the United States from Mexico as a baby, and the long history of U.S. rejection and oppression of immigrants just like her.

By any measure, the award-winning Hinojosa has earned professional success, despite the obstacles facing the rare Latina in mostly White (and male) newsrooms, but she can’t stop seeing—and pointing out to the rest of us—the many other immigrants who are discriminated against, detained, deported, and almost worst of all: invisible.

Even with a roomful of journalism prizes, Hinojosa tells her own immigrant success story filled with doubts about her professional abilities and competence. “The possibility of failure hounded me constantly,” she writes in Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America (Atria Books, 2020). She has debilitating doubts about herself as a journalist, as a woman, a mother, and a wife.

Many successful people suffer from “imposter syndrome,” that feeling you aren’t really worthy, but few describe the feeling so openly. Hinojosa’s doubts never really went away, even as she climbed the ladders of top U.S. media companies such as CNN and NPR and built her own business, but she pushed through the doubts with smarts, guts, determination, burning ambition, a grueling work ethic, and talent.

She also comes across as lovable, if at times exasperating, with a network of good friends, colleagues who back her up, a man who adores her, and as a person of great empathy and self-awareness. I’ve yet to meet her, but I listened to her audiobook during a long drive from Washington, DC, to Chicago, where we both grew up, which was especially enjoyable because it was as if Maria were riding along with me.

Her middle-class family (her father was a medical doctor) moved from Mexico City to Chicago in 1962, a year after Maria was born. Hinojosa’s personal story of growing up and finding journalism is moving, funny, heartbreaking, and inspiring. You don’t have to be an immigrant to appreciate the story, but there are a few amusing details that reminded me of my wife’s Mexican family.

Some of the personal and professional challenges she describes are unique to being an immigrant: prejudice and discrimination, the sense of not belonging to either Mexico or the United States, and different cultural expectations for how a woman should behave.

Other challenges do not belong exclusively to immigrants: overcoming a teenage trauma, balancing a stressful career and a family, and choosing between a high-salary, big-title job that destroys your soul, or meaningful work that pays more in personal satisfaction than in cash.

If Maria were editing this review, I’m guessing she would want me to write less about her and more about the less-famous immigrants she describes in the book. Her outrage about the treatment of immigrants is well researched, and she takes us through the founding of the United States, the conflicting attitudes toward immigrants throughout U.S. history, and the cruel policies of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

She reveals people living below the radar, keeping their heads down because they don’t have permission to be here, but who simply want to work and raise their families. She describes what happens when they are found out and become trapped in the system, a system that has grown harsher with for-profit detention camps and family separation.

Hinojosa started out as a college radical and activist but then chose journalism as the best way to make a difference. She was raised both on the U.S. news program 60 Minutes, which her family watched together while she was growing up in Chicago, and on the authoritative female broadcasters of educational television and radio in Mexico that she enjoyed on summer vacations.

A colleague at NPR once accused her of still being an activist and not a real journalist, saying everybody knew about her “Latino agenda.” She shot back that if she was biased, he must have a “white-male agenda.” He did not understand what she meant, proving her point.

Hinojosa is a real journalist, and comes from a long tradition of muckrakers and troublemakers in U.S journalism who expose wrongdoing with facts, not opinions. She does have opinions, of course, but what she really has is expertise and a point of view that sees immigrants everywhere, which is, in fact, where they are.

Her expertise about immigration is no different than a science reporter who becomes an expert on virology to cover the pandemic, or the economics reporter who gets an MBA to better understand business. Those reporters are not accused of having an “agenda.”

Hinojosa’s focus on immigrants is so intense that it might change your focus, and help you see the people she sees. In the book’s introduction she writes about meeting a frightened young girl who had just crossed the border into Texas. Hinojosa wants the girl to know she is not alone and that she is welcome in the United States.

“I see you,” Hinojosa says, “because once I was you.”

(Peter Copeland is a journalist and author, most recently of Finding the News: Adventures of a Young Reporter.

Peter Copeland is a former foreign correspondent and Washington bureau chief. His most recent book is Finding the News: Adventures of a Young Reporter.

Recent Posts

  • Interview: Foreign Press Correspondents USA
  • She Went to War Book Release Announcement
  • In Maria Hinojosa’s New Memoir, Once I Was You, A Journalist Covers Her Own Story   
  • Book Review: The Whistleblower, the Reporter, and the Life-and-Death Consequences of Exposing Secrets
  • Finding the News wins first place in the memoir category of The Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2020

Filed Under: Blog Posts, Book Reviews

Book Review: The Whistleblower, the Reporter, and the Life-and-Death Consequences of Exposing Secrets

June 12, 2020 by Peter Copeland

Dark Mirror Book Cover

Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State

Barton Gellman

Buy the Book on Amazon

Visit Barton Gellman’s website

The people charged with keeping us safe from terrorists and other enemies complain that they have the nearly impossible task of hunting for a needle in a haystack: a single bad guy in a world with billions of people.

But what if, instead of searching for a single needle, they could just grab the entire haystack?

The haystack in this case is the data created by cell phones, internet searches, and other electronic communications. Not just the communications of the bad guy, but of everybody.

As Barton Gellman shows in his thoughtful and engaging new book Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State, collecting the entire haystack was the goal of U.S. intelligence, a goal that might have been a good military strategy but also threatened American ideals of privacy and the rule of law.

The book is part detective story, part reporter’s handbook on how to cover a dangerous and sensitive topic, and part explainer on government surveillance. The two main characters are the author, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, and Edward Snowden, a former member of the surveillance state who now lives in Russia to avoid U.S. prosecution for revealing highly classified secrets.

Gellman and Snowden have chosen two different ways to live their professional lives, one as a reporter trying to explain the U.S. government’s surveillance programs, and the other as a whistleblower who thinks the system has been abused and could easily be turned against American citizens. Gellman, who I know from many years ago when we both were reporters in Washington, DC, is outgoing and has chased stories around the world, while Snowden spends every waking minute online, mostly alone, and calls himself a “house cat.”

They do share an intensity of purpose, a precision over the details, a belief in the importance of their work, the ability to be a “giant pain in the ass,” and the enduring wrath of members of the intelligence community who think they did far more harm than good by exposing global surveillance programs.

The dramatic part of the narrative is how these two very different men come together as reporter and source, overcome their mutual distrust, and agree to disagree about their respective roles.

Gellman writes early in the book, “The reader is entitled to know up front that I think Snowden did substantially more good than harm, even though I am prepared to accept (as he is not) that his disclosures must have exacted a price in lost intelligence.”

Admiral William McRaven, who lead all U.S. Special Operations forces, is just one of the people quoted in the book who are furious with the whistleblower and the reporter: Snowden “violated the law, so at the end of the day, in divulging that information, you are dealing with a criminal,” McRaven told Gellman in an uncomfortable confrontation. “So where is the integrity in that?”

McRaven, who is almost trembling with rage, tells Gellman: “You as a reporter make the call that it’s more important for the public—and I would contend, more important for the reporter—to get that story out before somebody scoops you. … And you can always make a case in your own mind why the American people need to know something.”

Gellman was not an uncritical conduit for Snowden’s leaks, however, and he agonized over the benefit of every exposure against the damage to U.S. security. Gellman was not always aware of how a given exposure might hurt U.S. intelligence, and that was part of the dilemma, but clearly Snowden’s leaks damaged the government’s surveillance programs.  

The reporter printed only a fraction of the information Snowden had, he refused to publish secrets that he believed would hurt ongoing U.S. operations or personnel, and he protected Snowden’s information from curious foreign intelligence services. “Speaking for myself, I am not agnostic about my loyalties,” Gellman tells the government’s senior intelligence lawyer. “I am not—in this context—a global citizen, indifferent to the outcomes of national conflict.”

Gellman was not happy about being put in the role of deciding which disclosures would harm U.S. operations, however, and that is a key point of the book. The surveillance programs that Snowden exposed were not known to the public, or even to most people in government, so there never was any public debate over whether the programs had gone too far.

Even Snowden, who is not a transparency absolutist, admits that the challenge in a democracy is letting everyone know what the government is doing, without the bad guys knowing. 

Even though Gellman tried to ask government officials about the impact of releasing Snowden’s information, many of his former sources refused to discuss the details before publication, turning their back on Gellman and labeling him “nasty and suspicious.”

“At heart, national security secrecy presents a conflict of core values: self-government and self-defense,” Gellman concludes. “If we do not know what our government is doing, we cannot hold it accountable. If we do know, our enemies know, too.”

During wartime, the contradiction over secrecy versus openness is sharpened because secrecy is so important to military victory. But, as Gellman explains so well, whether to wage war is one of the most important decisions a democracy needs to make, and that decision must be well informed.

Peter Copeland is a former foreign correspondent and Washington bureau chief. His most recent book is Finding the News: Adventures of a Young Reporter.

Recent Posts

  • Interview: Foreign Press Correspondents USA
  • She Went to War Book Release Announcement
  • In Maria Hinojosa’s New Memoir, Once I Was You, A Journalist Covers Her Own Story   
  • Book Review: The Whistleblower, the Reporter, and the Life-and-Death Consequences of Exposing Secrets
  • Finding the News wins first place in the memoir category of The Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2020

Filed Under: Blog Posts, Book Reviews

Finding the News wins first place in the memoir category of The Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2020

May 27, 2020 by Peter Copeland

See the rest of the winners on The US Review of Books’ website.

Finding the News won first place in the memoir category of The Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2020.

The book also made the “short list” of finalists for the 2020 Grand Prize.

Here’s what the judges said:

The Memoir category captures specific personal experience.

Winner

Finding the News, Peter Copeland, LSU Press – Copeland details his journey from Chicago city-desk reporter to international journalist. Part coming-of-age tale, part mentoring guide, he tells his story in vivid, spare prose. We feel the tension of a military unit poised to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. We experience the fear of civilians huddled together in a hotel basement, shuddering at the muffled thunder of an overhead Patriot missile launch. During his career, he broke impactful stories about the role of women warriors and border issues with Mexico, where he met his dancer wife. Throughout, the author reaffirms the bedrock values of journalism—speed, accuracy, and fairness. He offers a glimpse of the profession before random cell phone clips could set the news agenda and before the blurring of the line between opinion and news. The book hearkens when reporters took seriously their role in earning public trust.

About The Eric Hoffer Book Award

“The Eric Hoffer Book Award honors the memory of the great American philosopher Eric Hoffer by highlighting salient writing, as well as the independent spirit of small publishers,” according to the organizers. “Since its inception, the Hoffer has become one of the largest international book awards for small, academic, and independent presses.”

Peter Copeland is a former foreign correspondent and Washington bureau chief. His most recent book is Finding the News: Adventures of a Young Reporter.

Recent Posts

  • Interview: Foreign Press Correspondents USA
  • She Went to War Book Release Announcement
  • In Maria Hinojosa’s New Memoir, Once I Was You, A Journalist Covers Her Own Story   
  • Book Review: The Whistleblower, the Reporter, and the Life-and-Death Consequences of Exposing Secrets
  • Finding the News wins first place in the memoir category of The Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2020

Filed Under: Blog Posts

Finding the News Honored by Society of Midland Authors

May 11, 2020 by Peter Copeland

“His nose for a story and his quest to deliver quality writing in the moment provide a new adventure with every chapter.”  – From the judges, Midland Authors Annual Literary Award competition.

I’m proud to have been selected as an Honoree in the Biography/Memoir category of the Society of Midland Authors Annual Literary Award competition for books published in 2019. The Society says it “has been honoring the best books by Midwest authors since 1915.”

“We are pleased to add your name to the list of authors we have recognized for excellence,” the Society told me.

Screen capture of Peter Copeland's honorable mention on the Society of Midland Authors website.

Congratulations to the winner of our category, Iliana Regan, for her memoir, Burn the Place.

The Society of Midland Authors was founded in 1915 in Chicago by a group of authors, and its annual book awards have been given out since 1957. Notable past winners have included Saul Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut, Studs Terkel, Gwendolyn Brooks, Mike Royko, Jane Smiley, Dempsey Travis, Leon Forrest, William Maxwell, Louise Erdrich, Scott Turow, Alex Kotlowitz, Aleksandar Hemon, Stuart Dybek and Roger Ebert.

See the rest of the honorees, and learn more about the Society of Midland Authors on their website.

Peter Copeland is a former foreign correspondent and Washington bureau chief. His most recent book is Finding the News: Adventures of a Young Reporter.

Recent Posts

  • Interview: Foreign Press Correspondents USA
  • She Went to War Book Release Announcement
  • In Maria Hinojosa’s New Memoir, Once I Was You, A Journalist Covers Her Own Story   
  • Book Review: The Whistleblower, the Reporter, and the Life-and-Death Consequences of Exposing Secrets
  • Finding the News wins first place in the memoir category of The Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2020

Filed Under: Blog Posts

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