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Pulitzer Center Update December 3, 2015

Value of 'Slow Journalism' Found In Out of Eden Walk

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English

As Paul Salopek journeys around the world on foot, he will follow the migration pathways of our...

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Edge of the World. Image by Paul Salopek. 2013.

The Pulitzer Center understands the value of spending time on issues: working with journalists who frequently return to regions, communities and topics to report on the 'why?' and exploring topics in detail through our educational initiatives. These two missions come together via the Out of Eden Walk project by National Geographic Fellow Paul Salopek, featured in a Nieman Reports article by Michael Blanding.

In his article "The Value of Slow Journalism in the Age of Instant Information" Blanding considers Salopek's journey around the world on foot, following the migration pathways of our ancestors who walked out of Africa 50,000 years ago. Salopek's 22,000-mile trek traces humankind's migration from Ethiopia, across the Middle East and Asia, and down through the Americas to the tip of Argentina. The Pulitzer Center is one of Salopek's education partners on this journey, soon entering its fourth year.

Salopek spoke with Blanding about the value of "slow journalism" in a fast-paced world. Feeling disconnected from the stories he told throughout his career as a foreign correspondent, flying from one location to the next, Salopek finds that walking provides him the time to discover context to the stories and communicate with the people he reports on.

Blanding's article notes that while the values of slow journalism are not new, "the idea has taken on fresh urgency." Along with Salopek's project, Nieman Reports finds similar examples of the craft in work by Nicole LeBlanc who spent a decade with a family in the Bronx, and Katherine Boo who reported from more than three years in a Mumbai slum, among others.

You can read the full article, on the Nieman Reports website.

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