Professor’s expertise informs public about Mali invasion
Months of onsite investigative journalism by Washington State University English professor Peter Chilson into al-Qaeda’s takeover of northern Mali last spring have recently put him in high demand with the national and international media.
The flurry began when France intervened in the Malian crisis last week in an attempt to halt a further incursion by Islamists to gain control of Bamako, Mali’s capital city, and the rest of the country. The French intervention has received support from the international community, including the United States and several European nations.
The incursion coincided with the release of Chilson’s e-book, “We Never Knew Exactly Where: Dispatches from the Lost Country of Mali,” published by Foreign Policy magazine and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a media clearinghouse supporting writers who cover global conflicts for the U.S. media. The e-book, announced in Foreign Policy’s January/February issue, examines the implications of al-Qaeda’s newest base of operation and decries their devastation of ancient cultural icons. Links to selected Chilson radio interviews and to the e-book are available below.
“Peter Chilson’s work in Mali is some of the finest crisis reporting we’ve seen in a long time,” said Tom Hundley, senior editor, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. “Peter’s graceful writing, his deep knowledge of the subject, his gift for storytelling and willingness to go to where the real story was unfolding – all of this has made for a very rewarding piece of journalism…that will inevitably inform policy discussions on the future of Mali.”
