Thursday, July 19, 2012

Meet the New York Times Cairo bureau chief

This is great.  David Kirkpatrick is the bureau chief of the New York Times in Cairo.  You should listen to it although I could not stand listening to more than 15 minutes.  My favorite part is when he said that the New York Times is great in that it does not require its correspondents to be experts of the region that they cover.  I kid you not.  This guy was covering conservatives in American politics and he volunteered to cover the Arab world without any background (but he tells us he hired translators, so that should solve the problem of lack of expertise).  Terry asked him about the impact of Muslim Brotherhood victory on women in Egypt.  He said that it does not matter because women in Egypt can't get education and that they all are forced into family arranged marriage and their plight is "crummy" anyway.  This segment should really introduce you to the qualifications of New York Times correspondents.  (thanks Fred)