By Sankalpa Dashrath, MIA ‘11

It is daunting enough to meet with a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist. Adding to my nervousness was the fact that she would also be grading me next semester. Ms. Tina Rosenberg has had a long association with Columbia University. She has taught at SIPA for several years and was also a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute.

In 1987, she was the first free-lance journalist to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, which led her to South America and the publication of her first book, Children of Cain: Violence and the Violent in Latin America. Although she writes mostly for The New York Times magazine, her work includes countless articles at major publications like The New Yorker, The New Republic, and the Washington Post. Her last book, The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts after Communism, received a Pulitzer Prize in 1996.

For our lunch meeting, Ms. Rosenberg chose La Taza De Oro, a Latin American restaurant fashionably situated in the West Village. How appropriate, I thought; she could show me her culinary knowledge of a region that she had spent a lot of time in and clearly loved. (It was also one of New York Magazine’s Critic’s Pick). The Cuban Ropa Vieja – explained by Tina as meaning ‘old clothes’ in Spanish – was divine.  

Over the Ropa Vieja, we started talking about her Spring 2010 class at SIPA, ‘Writing for International Affairs.’  She explained that she will be making major content changes in the course to reflect larger changes in the media sphere. Previously focused solely on traditional journalistic skills, its scope will now be broadened to include more new-media channels. “Instead of being 100% journalism, it will now be 60%,” she said. Her plans include the addition of more contemporary topics such as writing policy briefs and press releases. The only pre-requisite she emphasized for taking this course is fluency in English, adding “a basic writing course wouldn’t hurt.” The course, although international in character, will examine issues from an American approach to writing.

We inevitably spoke about the broader changes in media that have prompted the changes to the syllabus. The media sphere has experienced rapid change; newspapers have shut down, journalists have been laid off, and traditional journalism seems to be dying, while technology has lowered the barriers to entry, and user-generated content seems to be taking over. Ms. Rosenberg calmly listened as I voiced these concerns – shared, I added, by many of my peers. She firmly believes that the future is not completely bleak, and that a market still exists for quality freelancers. Using the example of The Boston Globe, she noted that “their shutting down of the foreign desk does not mean they are not interested in international news anymore.” According to Rosenberg, if you are willing to report from any location and have some specialized local knowledge, there definitely will be interest in your stories. Good news for the diverse, well-traveled SIPA community, as specialized local knowledge is what we do. Ms. Rosenberg herself had started off as a freelancer, going to Nicaragua in 1985 to cover the war.

On user-generated content, she did express serious concerns. She spoke about how the traditional role of a journalist as civic watchdog has been reduced and how, as a result, serious investigative stories are being negatively affected. However, she admitted to loyally following certain online blogs since they served niche purposes.

The conversation eventually moved from the ‘what’ of writing to the ‘how.’ She spoke about how to tell a larger story through a smaller one, a literary tool she uses in her own writing. She believes that allows you to show the reader the human story behind complex issues, especially when writing about cultures and events that might be foreign to the reader. This is one area – non-fiction – where Ms. Rosenberg felt that SIPA students actually have an advantage over Journalism School students. She stated that if editors find someone who can write, they will have extra credibility because they specialize in the content. Since SIPA students have substantive knowledge of international issues, they have a distinct advantage.

Finally, I had to ask about any possible plans to work on a novel. She flashed a radiant smile and said, “Reality is interesting enough.”