|
Former Adham Center Intern Linda Vester Hosts Talk Show on FOX News
When Linda Vester first came to Egypt as a Fulbright scholar from 1988-89,
she worried that she was making a huge professional mistake.
Warning: fopen(/home/noelense/public_html/kpd-online.info/cache/5de905fc0a2eae64bd40ff8ca1e03ded) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /home/noelense/public_html/kpd-online.info/exchange/ex_func.php on line 128
Warning: fwrite(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/noelense/public_html/kpd-online.info/exchange/ex_func.php on line 129
Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/noelense/public_html/kpd-online.info/exchange/ex_func.php on line 130
Warning: fopen(/home/noelense/public_html/kpd-online.info/cache/08cb6b41c72b35d6e232f2733439b3d7) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /home/noelense/public_html/kpd-online.info/exchange/ex_func.php on line 128
Warning: fwrite(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/noelense/public_html/kpd-online.info/exchange/ex_func.php on line 129
Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/noelense/public_html/kpd-online.info/exchange/ex_func.php on line 130
Warning: fopen(/home/noelense/public_html/kpd-online.info/cache/c3cd6a5d4c12cc9e2d126107b91ead9b) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /home/noelense/public_html/kpd-online.info/exchange/ex_func.php on line 128
Warning: fwrite(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/noelense/public_html/kpd-online.info/exchange/ex_func.php on line 129
Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/noelense/public_html/kpd-online.info/exchange/ex_func.php on line 130
"It's funny because at the time it was kind of the waning years
of the first Intifada and that had been the story for a while,"
Vester says. "But it was over, it ended. And I thought, okay, I
may be making a real career misstep because I am studying this and making
it my background but no one may ever care! The Middle East may never
be in news again! Which now in retrospective seems ridiculous. The Middle
East is always right there. So I have been grateful ever since then.
And I think my only regret is that now that I am a mom and I am anchoring
a studio, I don't get to practice my Arabic enough!"
Vester is the host of DaySide with Linda Vester, a daytime talk
show on the FOX News Channel. The program has double the rating of CNN
in the same time slot and 3 to 4 times the number of viewers of MSNBC.
On the show, Vester reviews the day's headlines and moderates debates
between opposing commentators in front of a live audience, which is
encouraged to join in with comments, questions, applause or even boos
when they disagree with a pundit. With events in Iraq, Israel, Lebanon,
and other Middle East countries constantly in the news, Vester finds
herself often called upon to use her own Middle East knowledge, experience,
and limited Arabic on the job.
"I got a chance to live the culture," she says. "And
I really felt like I got to absorb it, live it, respect it, to understand
the both of rewards and frustrations. So when I talk to people, there
a lots of questions that come up about Islam, and I feel like I can
speak with a reasonable understanding of how modern Muslims feel from
my experience with Muslims in Cairo, and learning from them and learning
the traditions. I think that helps me, particularly when I am talking
about radical Islam. I feel like I am on pretty solid ground when I
am asking hard questions about radical Islam. But also frankly because
I lived in Cairo, I know that most of the Middle East is not free. And
I think it is one thing to sit here in the comfort of New York City
and say that; it is another thing to have lived it, and to know what
it is like. I can say it because I know, because I was there. I understand
what the lack of freedom is like. And the fear of reprisal for outspoken
speech. So yes, I would say in some way, literally every day, my education
at AUC comes into something in some way, some question I ask."
Vester joined FOX in 1999 after leaving NBC, where she was an anchorwoman,
hosting Today in America on MSNBC and NBC News at Sunrise
from 1996-1998. Vester also worked as a correspondent for NBC from 1992
to 1996, covering events like the crash of TWA Flight 800, the war in
Rwanda, and the first Gulf War. Vester says she regularly draws on her
experience as a masters student at AUC and an intern at the Adham Center
for Television Journalism.
A magna cum laude graduate of Boston University, Vester worked
briefly for a television station in Nebraska before applying for a Fulbright
grant to Egypt to study Middle East affairs, which brought her to AUC.
"My experience in Egypt and at AUC, really did change my life,"
she says. "When I got there as a Fulbright scholar I was already
committed to making Middle East affairs my expertise and making that
my specialty," Vester says. "But living in Zamalek, and studying
Islam at AUC and then just being able to discuss it with my bawwaab
(doorman) every day. I'd go home from class and sit down with my bawwaab.
He was totally illiterate. I can still remember his name. His name was
Soury. I learned things on campus and then I'd have the opportunity
in my neighborhood to get to live it. It just changed me. I would not
be the same person right now if I'd not had that experience."
 At
AUC, Vester studied fusha (classical Arabic) in the morning and
'ammiyya (colloquial Egyptian) in the afternoon, as well as history,
economics, politics, and Islam as part of a masters program. She also
interned at the Adham Center.
"My agreement with the Fulbright people was that whereas other
Fulbright students write papers, I would also produce television pieces,
really demonstrating what I was learning in a format that I was gong
to use in my future career," Vester says. "I had already been
a local reporter for a year in the US and I had been a producer before
that. So I was already in, I was already committed to TV journalism.
But I really wanted to show I meant it when I said I wanted to use my
studies and it would inform my work."
Vester loved living in Cairo, especially getting to know the Egyptian
students, teachers, and neighbors.
"And in a professional sense, I was really a one-man band,"
she recalls. "I was able to go out there and shoot my pieces, and
edit them and put them together. It was cool. I loved it. To me there's
nothing more compelling than being able to shoot compelling video. And
you know how rich the scenery is in Cairo. It's hard to put together
a visually boring story in Cairo."
Her experience paid off professionally as well as personally, though
her Fulbright project had been considered unorthodox at the time.
"I had no idea what my career would be like. I just knew that
I felt like I had an extraordinary opportunity and I'm really grateful
to AUC for enabling me to do it, because I don't know if they'd done
that for any Fulbright scholar before," Vester says. "The
Fulbright people were a little wary. They were not into the idea of
TV journalism. They sort of thought that it is a fly-by-night profession
and a certain person at the Fulbright made that quite clear. So it was
a little bit of a risk for the folks at AUC to welcome me there and
let me hone my craft as I was studying the culture."
Almost immediately after finishing her Fulbright year, Vester was snapped
up by NBC and sent to New York to be groomed as a foreign correspondent.
She left NBC in 1999 and has been working at FOX for over 5 years now.
She says she is aware that FOX has a reputation for conservative bias,
but she defends her journalistic integrity and maintains she has never
been told what position to take or what to say on air.
"Well I deal with the fact that [FOX] has a certain reputation,"
Vester says. "Most people ask me, do you get told what to say?
The answer is no. I never get told what to say ever and if I did I would
walk out the door. FOX is more conservative then the other networks,
that's true, but I think what it is is it reflects a world view that's
more kind of at the center of our country. It's not so much the New
York intelligentsia or the Los Angeles intelligentsia, but people in
the heartland of our country, and reflects their cultural values. That
is the way I see it."
FOX is committed to insuring that every segment is "fair and balanced,"
according to the channel's motto, Vester says.
"My opinion is that there is no such thing as objective because
by virtue of [news reporting] coming through a human filter, it's subjective,"
she says. "All you can be is fair."
To that end, Vester tries to make sure that the commentators she invites
to debate on her program "represent both sides and are equally
smart talkers."
She argues that FOX does not project a political bias so much as a
"different cultural perspective" from other networks.
"It is a different world view from say CBS," she says. "Having
worked at CBS I would say CBS is more liberal in terms of social issues
like a woman's right to choose. That abortion is permissible in certain
circumstances. FOX sees that abortion is a terribly traumatic event
in a woman's life and that there are more nuances than just well, a
woman has the right to choose. That may be true, but there is a personal
trauma that goes along with it. So I would say that's kind of a world
view, you see what I'm saying. Not so much a political view, but a cultural
view."
The difference in FOX's reporting on the Middle East can be found in
its anchors' and reporters' use of the term "homicide bombing"
instead of "suicide bombing" to describe attacks on civilians
and soldiers in Iraq, Israel, and elsewhere.
"It is our point of view murder is always wrong," Vester
explains. "We don't call it suicide bombing, because although somebody
commits suicide, it is a homicide, it kills people. We don't call it
homicide bombing if no one gets killed. It is a suicide bombing if he
blows himself himself and nothing happens. If he kills innocent people,
then it is homicide. That is a conscious choice of language. And if
you want to say we take a point of view on that, okay."
This is not a formal policy, she says, although such language choices
are discussed at twice-daily editorial meetings.
"Writers write what they write. Anchors say what they say. But
that's what ends up coming on the air. It is more like a consensus,"
she says.
Vester loves her job at FOX, one of the most popular news channels
in America. Her only regret is that her success has kept her so busy
that she does not have time to practice her Arabic or visit the Middle
East as much as she would like.
"Some day I hope to come back," she says. "Maybe if
I'm lucky I'll be able to take my little girl and show her where mommy
went to school."
-Lindsay Wise
|
