Adham Center News

Former CBS News Cairo Bureau Chief Visits Adham Center

More than twenty years ago Scotti Williston-now a professor at Columbia University's School of Journalism-was CBS News bureau chief in Cairo. As such she was the arch rival of Adham Center director Abdallah Schleifer, then her bitter competitor as NBC News bureau chief. But this past fall it was Schleifer who warmly welcomed Williston back to Cairo as visiting consultant to the Adham Center.

During her one week stay at the Adham Center, Williston met with all the TV Journalism MA candidates and shared with them both her experience as a TV professional and her insights 20 years later as a professor of television journalism.

Williston also delivered an all-university lecture on "New Trends in Television Journalism: The View from New York" in Oriental Hall. Indicating that she was not particularly happy about those new trends, Williston expressed her disappointment that television news has come more and more to resemble entertainment. She mentioned that an increasing number of reporters are interested in being stars, in being themselves part of the news story. Reporters are searching for news that is attractive and pleasing to the viewers and not all news is pleasant according to Williston. In addition, she objected to the use of first names while reporting. She finds it disrespectful, especially when used with men or women in authority. It is "classist, sexist, and racist," said Williston.

Williston also pointed to the tremendous growth of ethnic television in the United States. There are, for instance, Korean and Eritrean channels. Moreover, she considered the presence of Arabic satellite channels like Al Jazeera to be an achievement in itself. "Their mere existence is excellent," Williston said, noting that Al Jazeera "is a young channel and has some growing to do." The main drawback with Al Jazeera, according to Williston, is that "they are somewhat biased and inaccurate in their reporting. They need to do it (reporting) a little more journalistically and make it more visually attractive."

Williston participated in the classes for the TV Journalism graduate students. She gave them guidelines for scripting and critiqued their stories. Her visit happened to take place during Ramadan. Williston joined the graduate students and faculty gathered for an Iftar (the meal ending the day's fast). It was a day to remember.

Williston's visit made a great impact on the students, who had great admiration for her, not only for her eloquence and professionalism but also for her readiness to answer every question asked. One student put it this way, "We all felt her friendly character and warm personality and her readiness to help each one of the students." As for Professor Schleifer, he and Williston seemed to get along quite well. Perhaps that's because they are now colleagues sharing a lot of fond memories of their feuding in the "old days" and not fierce competitors.

By Azza Enanie