Foreign Exchange Episode Dedicated to Water Issues

Last November Foreign Exchange aired a special edition, focusing on the nearly 1 billion people around the world who lack access to clean water and sanitation. The host, Daljit Dhaliwal, highlighted Pulitzer Center's work on water issues in east Africa and how those reports were then used to frame an interactive web portal to engage the public, and in particular students and educators, throughout the world.

In the months since, the Pulitzer Center has funded additional reporting on water-related issues, from the massive desertification of north central China to river pollution in India, from the repercussions of melting glaciers in the high Himalayas to the Carter Center's work in Ethiopia to combat water-borne diseases. The Center has expanded the "Your Stories" feature of the Water Wars web portal, which now includes 170 short videos that capture the perspective of experts, journalists and individuals on how water affects our lives.

On the show that begins airing Friday, October 2, 2009, the host and guests highlight some of these specific projects and talk about the Water Wars initiative as a whole -- a new form of journalism that works across multiple media platforms to engage the broadest possible public. Jon Sawyer, Director and Founder of the Center, appears on the show as a guest as well as Pulitzer Center journalist Alex Stonehill, who recently reported from India after attending the World Water Forum with Sawyer. The InFocus video piece features additional Pulitzer work from India -- the spreading contamination of the widely-used Yamuna River and discrepancies in water access and consumption in Delhi's slums and wealthier neighborhoods.