Judith Matloff
Judith Matloff | |
|---|---|
| Born | New York City |
| Occupation | Journalist, author, media safety advocate |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Harvard-Radcliffe, 1981 |
| Notable works | No Friends but the Mountains Home Girl Fragments of a Forgotten War |
| Notable awards | Fulbright (twice) |
| Spouse | John van Schak |
| Children | 1 |
| Website | |
| judithmatloff | |
Judith Matloff (born March 25, 1958) is an American writer, journalism professor and media safety advocate. Her non-fiction books are No Friends but the Mountains (2017), Home Girl (2008), and Fragments of a Forgotten War (1997).
Matloff teaches conflict reporting at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and is a contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review. She previously served as the Africa and Moscow bureau chief for the Christian Science Monitor. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine and Book Review, The Economist, the Financial Times, Newsweek, the Sunday Telegraph and the Dallas Morning News.
Early life and education
Matloff was born in New York City to Lawrence and Hildegarde Matloff, both social workers. Lawrence eventually became an executive director of the Y.M.-Y.W.H.A. of Greater Flushing and executive vice president of Selfhelp Community Services, an agency for older people in the city founded to help victims of Nazi Germany who settled in the U.S. Educated at Hunter College High School, Matloff attended Harvard-Radcliffe College, writing for the Harvard Crimson, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1981.[1] Matloff's sister Susan is a community organizer and currently executive director of Manhattan's Lincoln Square Neighborhood Center.[2][3]
Career
She began her career reporting for UPI and the Mexico City News in the early 1980s. Writing mainly about areas of turmoil abroad, Matloff then served as a staff foreign correspondent for two decades, for various bureaus for Reuters and then as the Africa and Moscow bureau chief of the Christian Science Monitor. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine,[3] The Economist, Financial Times, and Newsweek,[4] among others.
Matloff has pioneered safety training for journalists around the world. She has consulted for such organizations as NBC, the United Nations, Society of Professional Journalists, Columbia University's Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, International News Safety Institute,[5] the State Department, UT Austin's Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, DCTV,[6] the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and outside the United States: Mexico City-based reporting network Periodistas de a Pié,[7] Mexico-based human rights group Cencos, BRITDOC, and the Canadian Association of Journalists.[4]
Fragments of a Forgotten War
In 1997, she published Fragments of a Forgotten War, a damning account of Angola's slide back into civil war in 1992, drawing on first-hand reporting in Africa as a staff correspondent for Reuters. The book argued that in its rush to end Cold War proxy wars in Africa, the international community steered Angola into a presidential election prematurely, and then failed to respond robustly when rebel leader Jonas Savimbi rejected his defeat and returned to the bush. BBC correspondent Fergal Keane called Matloff "one of the most astute observers of Africa" and said the book "should be read by anybody who cares about humanity."[8]
Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block
In 2008, she published a memoir about starting a family after her return to New York City in a fixer-upper brownstone in West Harlem. The purchase of the building was an impulse buy—it turns out to have once been a crack house and that the street is controlled by a narcotics dealer—and she and her husband must charm lax construction workers, bold drug dealers and strange neighbors in one of the biggest drug zones in the country. Matloff focuses not on herself or even the house, but, as the Kirkus Reviews says "her thrilling, problem-plagued neighborhood, colorully portrayed in terms that are neither frightened nor naive." The book received mainly positive reviews, with the Library Journal and Rocky Mountain News praising Matloff's storytelling skills, the Tuscon Citizen calling the book "hugely entertaining."[9]
No Friends but the Mountains: Dispatches from the World’s Violent Highlands
In her most recent book, Matloff explores why mountains are home to 10 percent of the world’s population yet host a strikingly disproportionate share of the world’s conflicts. She traveled 72,000 miles over five continents to investigate the geographic link between, among others, Albanian blood feuds, separatist struggles in Dagestan and Kashmir, and Mexican vigilante squads facing down narcotics cartels. She explores military solutions while with NATO troops in the Arctic and American mountain soldiers, to conclude that autonomy is the best approach. She advances the argument, hailed by the author Robert Kaplan as "original", that the physical remoteness creates existential alienation as well, and that Switzerland's canton system presents a promising model for avoiding conflict. The book received starred reviews by Publishers Weekly and Booklist. The latter called it "impressive and necessary… Matloff approaches her topic with a magic combination of wisdom and empathy, and it is impossible to not be moved." Steve Coll, the dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, hailed the book as "classical international journalism of the highest order."[10]
Awards
- Josephine L Murray Traveling Fellowship, Harvard-Radcliffe College
- Fulbright Scholar to Mexico, 1981–82[4]
- The Godsell, Christian Science Monitor award, 1998[9]
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation International Peace and Cooperation research grant, 1995, for work on her book eventually entitled "Fragments of a Forgotten War."[11]
- The South Asian Journalists Association, 2008, for articles on the Kashmiri for Time and the Christian Science Monitor[12]
- Media fellowship, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 2008[13]
- Fulbright Scholar to Mexico, 2013–14[4][14]
Associations
Personal life and family
She is married to Dutch-born John van Schaik, New York editorial bureau chief at Energy Intelligence Group.[16] They met as foreign correspondents in South Africa in the 1990s and have a son.[9][17]
Matloff's grandparents came to the US to flee the pogroms of Russia.[18] Her uncle, Maurice, was chief historian of the US Army from 1970 to his retirement in 1981 and author of Strategic Planning and Coalition Warfare and co-author of American Military History.[19]
Books
- No Friends but the Mountains: Violence in the World's High Places (Basic Books, 2017)[6][10]
- Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block (Random House, 2008)[9]
- Fragments of a Forgotten War (Penguin, South Africa, 1997)[20]
References
- ^ Marshall, Virginia (February 5, 2013). "Revolutionary Journalism". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ "About the Author: Susan Matloff-Nieves". Prufrock Press website. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ a b "Obituaries:Lawrence Matloff, Administrator, 62". The New York Times. November 4, 1988. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ a b c d "Judith Matloff". Columbia Journalism School website. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ "INSI advisor to speak at UN event on World Press Freedom Day". INSI. April 25, 2012. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ a b "Workshop>instructors: Judith Matloff". DCTV website. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
- ^ "INSI North America launches course for journalists covering risk areas in Mexico". INSI. January 30, 2012. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ "New Books from Africa, 12/97". africa.upenn.edu. Retrieved February 21, 2017.
- ^ a b c d "Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block". Penguin Random House website. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ a b "Books: The war is in the mountains". Duckworth Overlook Press website. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ "Matloff, Judith". MacArthur Foundation website. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ "Funded Reporting Fellowships". SAJA website. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ "2008 Annual Report" (PDF). hoover.org. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ "Fulbright Scholar List: Judith Matloff". Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ "Current Members". pen.org. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ "Bureau chiefs". Energy Intelligence website. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ Matloff, Judith (August 3, 2009). "The 'Green' Family Next Door". forbes.com. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ Matloff, Judith (September 2, 2009). "Stirring Up the Past". New York Times Magazine.
- ^ "Chief Historian Maurice Matloff Dies". The Washington Post. July 17, 1993. Retrieved February 21, 2017.
- ^ "Books By Alums". HCHS Alumnae/i Association website. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
External links
- 1958 births
- Harvard University alumni
- Hunter College High School alumni
- Living people
- People from Queens, New York
- American journalists
- Journalists from New York (state)
- The Harvard Crimson people
- Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism faculty
- 20th-century American writers
- 20th-century women writers
- 21st-century American writers
- 21st-century women writers
- American journalism academics
- American people of Russian descent
- Random House
- Penguin Books
- People from New York City