The True Cost of Gold: Steve Sapienza Visits Wake Forest University

Pulitzer Center grantee and Emmy Award-winning journalist Steve Sapienza visits Wake Forest University to discuss "The True Cost of Gold." Sapienza's evening lecture on Wednesday, September 26 reveals how the global consumption of goods impacts precious resources in Peru, Thailand, and Bangladesh. He examines these issues through his collection of reporting for PBS NewsHour supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, including his project "Peru's Gold Rush: Wealth and Woes."

Yasmin Bendaas, the first WFU Pulitzer Center Fellow, joins Sapienza on stage discussing her 2012 student reporting project "Between the Lines: Facial Tattoos and the Chaouia" exploring indigenous facial tattoos in Algeria.

In addition to illegal mining in Peru's Amazon, Sapienza's recent Pulitzer Center-supported projects have focused on Burma’s hidden war with the Kachin people, human trafficking in the Thai shrimp industry, and accountability in the water sector in West Africa. Sapienza's connections with the Pulitzer Center run deep: he was co-producer for the Pulitzer Center’s Emmy Award-winning web-based reporting project called "Hope: Living & Loving with HIV in Jamaica" and producer of four short documentary films for the Pulitzer Center web-based reporting series on HIV in the Caribbean called "Heroes of HIV".

The Pulitzer Center is sponsoring Sapienza and Bendaas's evening talk and other class visits on campus in partnership with the Wake Forest University Journalism Program and the Wake Forest University Documentary Film Program with financial assistance from the Provost's Office on Global Affairs. Sapienza is in North Carolina for one week in conjunction with the Pulitzer Center Campus Consortium partnership with Wake Forest University, High Point University and Guilford College.

Wednesday, September 26
5pm - 7pm
Annenberg Auditorium, Carswell Hall
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem, NC 27106

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshment reception to follow the discussion.