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Former CBS News Cairo Bureau Chief
Visits Adham Center
More than twenty years
ago Scotti Williston-now a professor at Columbia University's School of Journalism-was
CBS News bureau chief in Cairo. As such she was the arch rival of Adham Center
director Abdallah Schleifer, then her bitter competitor as NBC News bureau chief.
But this past fall it was Schleifer who warmly welcomed Williston back to Cairo
as visiting consultant to the Adham Center.
During her one week stay
at the Adham Center, Williston met with all the TV Journalism MA candidates and
shared with them both her experience as a TV professional and her insights 20
years later as a professor of television journalism.
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Williston also delivered
an all-university lecture on "New Trends in Television Journalism: The View from
New York" in Oriental Hall. Indicating that she was not particularly happy about
those new trends, Williston expressed her disappointment that television news
has come more and more to resemble entertainment. She mentioned that an increasing
number of reporters are interested in being stars, in being themselves part of
the news story. Reporters are searching for news that is attractive and pleasing
to the viewers and not all news is pleasant according to Williston. In addition,
she objected to the use of first names while reporting. She finds it disrespectful,
especially when used with men or women in authority. It is "classist, sexist,
and racist," said Williston.
Williston also pointed
to the tremendous growth of ethnic television in the United States. There are,
for instance, Korean and Eritrean channels. Moreover, she considered the presence
of Arabic satellite channels like Al Jazeera to be an achievement in itself. "Their
mere existence is excellent," Williston said, noting that Al Jazeera "is a young
channel and has some growing to do." The main drawback with Al Jazeera, according
to Williston, is that "they are somewhat biased and inaccurate in their reporting.
They need to do it (reporting) a little more journalistically and make it more
visually attractive."
Williston participated
in the classes for the TV Journalism graduate students. She gave them guidelines
for scripting and critiqued their stories. Her visit happened to take place during
Ramadan. Williston joined the graduate students and faculty gathered for an Iftar
(the meal ending the day's fast). It was a day to remember.
Williston's visit made
a great impact on the students, who had great admiration for her, not only for
her eloquence and professionalism but also for her readiness to answer every question
asked. One student put it this way, "We all felt her friendly character and warm
personality and her readiness to help each one of the students." As for Professor
Schleifer, he and Williston seemed to get along quite well. Perhaps that's because
they are now colleagues sharing a lot of fond memories of their feuding in the
"old days" and not fierce competitors.
By
Azza Enanie
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