Pulitzer Center Update

This Week: One Man, Seven Years

Edge of the World. Image by Paul Salopek.

Out of Eden, In the News

In the spring of 2012 an intrepid journalist adventurer came to us with the most unusual proposal the Pulitzer Center had ever received—that we partner on the educational outreach on a reporting project that would be seven years in the making and that would entail traveling from Africa’s Rift Valley to the southern tip of South America—by foot. The journalist was Paul Salopek and the project his Out of Eden Walk, a rolling contemplation of humankind’s migration across the Earth and what it says about the big issues facing us today, and all of that at the pace of three miles per hour.

A year ago this month Paul was in the classrooms of Pulitzer Center schools in Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. He has kept in touch from the road, via Skype chats and emails and the lesson plans developed by the Pulitzer Center’s education team. This past week he has been introducing the journey on some of the biggest media platforms in the world—a cover story in the December issue of National Geographic (principal sponsor of Paul’s journalism in this project), a cover feature in The New York Times Sunday Review, and a joint interview on NPR’s Tell Me More with Pulitzer Center education advisor Homa Tavangar. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Paul on this inspiring project. For some of the highlights from the walk’s first year see outofedenwalk.com.

David Rohde Reports

The headlines this weekend were all Iran, the breakthrough agreement with six western powers aimed at ending sanctions against Iran in exchange for Iran forgoing the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The story behind the story is the central role of Secretary of State John Kerry, and his unlikely emergence as a central player on big-stakes issues (not just Iran but also Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Afghanistan). You won’t find a better account than the 9,500-word profile of Kerry by Pulitzer Center board member David Rohde, currently featured on Reuters online and in the December print edition of The Atlantic. David is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, formerly with The New York Times and now a Reuters columnist. We are pleased to make David Rohde Reports a standing feature on our website, to give our readers quick access to his commentary, reportage, speeches and more.

Russian “Monotowns” and Honduras Elections

Two ongoing Pulitzer Center projects offer sharp insights on subjects continents apart. In a series for The New Yorker’s Photo Booth blog, grantees Dominic Bracco II and Jeremy Relph document the tensions in Honduras surrounding a contested election and a society awash in drugs, violence and poverty. Grantees Anna Nemtsova and Brendan Hoffman continue their work on single-industry Russian cities with a report for Foreign Policy from Asbest—site of the world’s largest open-pit asbestos mine and a place where even showing journalists the site can cost someone her job.