Chapter 24: Minorities & Me - My Writings, Trainings & Advocacy for the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe

History has proven that the media – and its journalists – can play a destructive role in societies, conditioning the public to condone, even support, horrendous abuses. Committed by one community against another community. Even if it spirals into a wider conflict or war. Countless examples have proven the point in recent decades, from Bosnia and Rwanda to Ukraine and Gaza. Social-media incitement only exacerbates this potential.

On the other hand, the media can play a fundamental, beneficial role to promote peace, progress and inter-ethnic, inter-religious, inter-communal harmony. United Nations agencies like UNESCO, and schools like George Washington University, have created curricula in Peace Journalism.

With this pivotal role in mind, among the most meaningful journalism training I’ve done over the past 20 years came while living in Slovakia, from 2006-2011. Specifically, I served on the frontlines of human rights-based journalism, offering a style of “shoulder-to-shoulder” trainings that assisted the most marginalized minority in Europe: the Roma. The folks known more pejoratively as the Gypsies.

In this Chapter, I describe how my shoulder-to-shoulder approach worked – and how you might adapt it to boost the Communications, storytelling and advocacy skills of a disadvantaged community near you. Why? For a variety of reasons, from illuminating their challenges to “humanizing the other.”

Moreover, during this stint in Slovakia, as I grew more outspoken, in general – on topics like the media’s role in society, the fate of journalism education, and the health of Central European democracy (see Chapter Twenty-One: Building My Brand) – I myself dabbled in pro-Roma advocacy. I penned numerous pieces aimed at raising greater awareness about what I saw as mistreatment of Roma in Slovakia, Hungary, and elsewhere. That’s why this Chapter combines multiple, inter-related elements:

*The backstory of how my affinity for minorities first drew me to the plight of the Roma.

*The profound lesson-learned from my first training for the Roma of Slovakia.

*The range of stories that I wrote about the Roma and anti-Roma racism.

*Stories I co-authored with Romani colleagues in the Balkans, from our reporting trips.

*The articles of mine that were later re-published in a book about the Roma.

*My reportage on how anti-Roma incitement fueled the resurgence of Hungary’s far right.?

The Relevant Background

After following my wife to Slovakia for her work in International Development, the five years that I lived there was packed with exciting new challenges, both professional and personal. Besides raising two young sons, we welcomed a daughter in 2009.

As I noted in Chapter Twenty-Two: Teaching the Chinese, training for Transitions Online (TOL) in Prague enabled me to do more than solidify my place in International Education – and in International Journalism Education, specifically. It also opened up new teaching and training opportunities.

Beyond teaching large groups of international participants every January and July, then teaching even larger groups of Chinese grad students in January 2008 and January 2009, TOL invited me in 2009 to lead a unique training project for the Roma community. Specifically, I’d train a handful of Romani journalists from across the Balkans to produce a “human rights-based” form of journalism.

I’ll explain what that means in this chapter. But looking back, it’s not surprising that I evolved toward a more activist role with my teaching. It was part of a broader pattern during this period: more experience brought a burgeoning self-confidence that also fueled my personal and professional growth.

As noted in Chapter Twenty-One, this self-confidence enabled me to find my own voice and express my own opinions. It also drove my range of passions, manifesting itself in everything from my storytelling, editorializing and photography, to my teaching, training and mentoring.

Now with a platform of my own, too, I also wrote in an increasingly outspoken way, sharing what I saw as my insights. Once I felt more comfortable with that, I was ready to take action, too, tackling another of post-Communist Central Europe’s thorniest issues: How they treated the Roma. On behalf of the Roma, I felt growing outrage at how the majority mistreated this minority, regionwide.

In this chapter, I show how I dipped my toe into activism – through a hybrid form that blends advocacy with journalism training. Moreover, the TOL opportunity offered me a chance to combine travel across the region with a new and exciting style of coaching: Shoulder-to-shoulder training.

This meant that I myself would join a younger colleague out in the field, guiding them to produce stories about their own community – meaningful content that would illuminate systematic discrimination, raise awareness of human-rights violations, and spotlight breaches of human dignity.

Before I dive more deeply into my unique interaction with the Roma minority, I’ll underscore one point about compensation. Training for a not-for-profit organization, the assignment itself wasn’t lucrative. Yet, I found it gratifying in other ways, as an altruistic aim also expanded my portfolio.

That’s why it’s worth repeating what I noted in Chapter Twenty-One: None of this would’ve been possible without my wife’s support. I wasn’t under pressure to earn more money, so could agree to a gig that would pay me, on an hourly basis, roughly McDonald’s wages. Moreover, just as I watched our children whenever she travelled for work, she allowed me to travel, guilt-free, for my training trips.

Magnetized to Minorities

As always, I believe we need a bit of relevant, background context – to explain how and why someone, like me, arrives at a certain point in their life. No situation happens in a void or vacuum.

In Chapter Six: The Flourishing Freelancer, I described how my International Journalism bloomed in the late 1990s, fueled by my growing interest to explore more topics, for various clients. From my base in Budapest, I awoke to the challenges that Jewish communities faced across post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe. I’d grown up in a non-religious, liberal-minded, but low-key Jewish home. My father was a Hungarian Jewish refugee, whose family was mostly murdered during the Holocaust.

Looking back, though, it wasn’t reflexively my own Jewishness that drew me to issues affecting the region’s Jewish communities. Instead, it was journalistic instinct. I realized: how a government treats its ethnic, religious, gender or other minorities is often an illuminating litmus-test of that society’s tolerance. (Similarly, how a state treats its media is often an accurate gauge of that society’s freedoms.)

At the time, I was continually drawn to meaningful topics that involved ethnic, national and minority groups of all stripes. (Even today, that remains the case.) The ethno-religious bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia was an extreme example, of course. But tensions simmered across the region.

Indeed, each country of Central-Eastern Europe has significant ethnic-majorities, plus a goulash of smaller ethnic groups. Only two minorities have historically dwelled across the region: Jews and Roma. Once you pay attention to how minorities are treated, it’s impossible to ignore the Roma plight.

Mounds of research suggests that generations of Roma have been systemically discriminated against, regionwide, in the four areas that matter most to the well-being of any minority: Healthcare, Housing, Education and Employment. For example, only an estimated 1% of Roma youth attends university. Where less-empathetic folks claim genetics is a factor, advocates point to a biased system.

That said, I only probed those serious socio-economic issues during my second stint in Central Europe, from 2006 onward. During my first stint, though, my journalistic interest in – and affinity for – the Roma emerged through the prism of what had happened to their community during World War II. They, too, were targeted for mass murder by the Nazis and their collaborators.

Though the death-toll wasn’t on the staggering scale of what Jews endured, Roma trauma was similarly deep, lasting and largely overlooked, even ignored, by later generations, both domestically and internationally. Back in 1997, I’d published my first Roma-related piece about their own Holocaust:

Nearly a decade later, I was back in the region, living in Hungary’s northern neighbor, Slovakia. I began to view the Roma through a different, but more pressing, prism. In both Budapest and Bratislava, racism had become an increasingly political and politicized issue – and sometimes influenced (or infected) interactions between ordinary people in the streets, too.

For these ordinary folk, as the transition from Communism to capitalism grew more complicated, painful and disillusioning, some politicians sought to distract their populace by deflecting blame to a traditional scapegoat: the Jews. But in most instances, they chose an easy target: the Roma.

Not only are Roma far more numerous than Jews, but they’re more visible and recognizable, due to their generally darker complexion. (Unless we consider the tiny communities of ultra-orthodox Jews, who may dress in distinctive black coats and black hats, with a yarmulke skullcap.)

The open hostility that Roma confront at the grassroots, then and now, when mixing among the majority populations, can be a sight to behold. The majority Caucasians typically stereotype all Gypsies as loud, lazy thieves – and “less civilized” than themselves. I’d often detect the disdain in their eyes.

When we moved to Bratislava, I saw this attitude among the Slovaks, too. Moreover, Bratislava is roughly one-quarter the size of Budapest – which we visited regularly, to see our children’s grandparents. Traveling back and forth, the hostility seemed more pronounced in my new environs.

Given my own family’s tragic history in Hungary – and my mixed feelings toward the Hungarians who’d been complicit in turning on them – I was alarmed, and felt disgusted, at the rise of references in mainstream Hungarian media to Cigány b?n?zés. In English, this translates to Gypsy criminality.

In other words, some were now, noisily, assigning communal blame for the actions of a few Roma. The accusation of Gypsy criminality was more than a hot topic; it was becoming normalized. It was also igniting a dangerous hatred with echoes of the past. It was then already 60 years since the Holocaust; nevertheless, the far-right of society was once again resurgent in Hungary and Slovakia.

From my new base in Bratislava, I resolved to do something about it. In my own way.

“A Not-For-Profit Guy”

In fact, the 2009 shoulder-to-shoulder training for TOL that I referred to at the outset of this chapter wasn’t my first project with Romani journalism colleagues, on behalf of the Roma cause. My first one actually unfolded soon after we arrived in Slovakia and surveyed my on-the-ground options. However, that one left a lasting impression, for my ineffective, even clueless, initial approach.

As Chapter Eleven and Chapter Nineteen chronicled, by late 2006 I was deep into my hunt for meaningful teaching opportunities. On the one hand, just as I’d taught in New York (see Chapter Nine), I was committed to experiencing Central European universities – and mentoring young Central Europeans in the classroom. As explained in Chapter Eleven, in 2007 I began teaching at both a provincial Slovak university – the University of Saints Cyril and Methodius, in Trnava – and in the second-largest Czech city – at Masaryk University in Brno. (You’ll find essays on my lessons-learned in Chapter Twenty-One.)

On the other hand, I wanted to broaden my professional horizons. I mulled how to get involved with trainings, beyond TOL-Prague: as a trainer, following a set curriculum; or, more likely, developing my own. I was open to training both students and professionals. Leading either audience through practical, hands-on workshops would be an exciting new challenge, especially in this part of the world.

On what topics? For some reason, my heart and mind were drawn to trainings that centered on societal issues, not commercial brands. This reflected my journalistic interests, too. As an ambitious freelancer, I could’ve approached business publications for more-lucrative assignments. Or even dabbled in Corporate Communications, by writing internal newsletters, press-releases, reports, etc.

For whatever reason, though, I was more interested in the fate of humanity. How people treat each other. How countries treat each other. How countries treat people. And so on.

This tugged me toward the not-for-profit world of activists, versus the for-profit universe of corporations. In later years, I’d half-jokingly refer to myself as “a not-for-profit guy.” (Though, I’d also clarify this with a new mantra: All I want to do is meaningful work – and to be paid decently for it. Needless to say, we all have our own definition of what’s “meaningful” work and “decent” pay.)

Again, fortunately, my supportive wife didn’t pressure me to chase profits. I could stick to my high-minded principles. At the same time, it was also true that I wanted my kids to one day see Dad delivering on gigs that were cool, tangible and impactful. For the benefit of others. At a university, at least, my topic would be International Journalism. But trainings? Which themes would I explore?

That helps explain why it was me who initially approached the not-for-profit TOL in Prague, from Bratislava. Likewise, in the Slovak capital, I knocked on the door of another possibility: the US Embassy to Slovakia. This is where my growing interest in the Roma merged with my professional interests: I recognized that one obvious way for me to apply my skillset was to get involved with Romani media.

Underpinning that, my market research concluded that plenty of Western embassies, donors and other organizations keenly followed the Roma issue. They were also ready to back up their words with action, allocating sizable funds for all sorts of pro-democracy, pro-civil society, pro-human rights, pro-Roma and anti-racism activities. Wisely, I followed the money – and training opportunities.

At the same time, I was open to the need for travel, if a work-adventure called for it. In Slovakia, I saw that potential, too. Of its total population of 5 million-plus, an estimated half-a-million were Roma. Yet, most of the community lived in eastern half of the country. I now resided on the western edge, in the capital. To cross the country would require either a one-hour flight or five-hour train-ride.

So, I approached the US Embassy, asking how I could assist Romani media colleagues. They insisted, understandably, that I first find a local Slovak partner receptive to my overture. Then, we should jointly approach the Embassy for funding. It was simply a question of supply-and-demand: Is there truly demand for your services? Prove it! I knew what had to come next: more market research.

My Attitude, Adjusted

I surfed online and asked around among my new contacts, about potential partners. There weren’t many. In fact, there were, then and now, only a handful of Roma media outlets across Central and Eastern Europe. That’s how I came across the Roma Press Agency (RPA), the only such news service in Slovakia. They were headquartered in the eastern city of Kosice – a hub for Romani life.

The name Kosice also excited me, for personal reasons. My father’s Jewish family had been scattered in northeastern Hungary and across the northern border, in eastern Slovakia – which were historically Hungarian-ruled lands and once part of the broader Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Some of my ancestors had lived or attended school in charming Kosice, which is known as Kassa in Hungarian.

I contacted the RPA Executive Director, Kristína Magdolenová, and we met during her next visit to Bratislava. Given my Foreign Reporting across the region, my three years of teaching Journalism at Long Island University in Brooklyn – and that I’d now begun teaching in Trnava and Brno and training for TOL-Prague – Magdolenová found me credible and sincere enough to train and coach her small staff.

Now with a local partner on board, I pitched my modest proposal to the Embassy: funding to cover three visits to Kosice, for me to lead a training for the RPA’s Romani reporters and editors. Both in the newsroom and out in the field. The Embassy agreed to cover the costs – and pay me for my efforts.

This was an exciting achievement for me, back in 2007: I was now planting my flag in teaching and training in Central Europe. While I found the entire experience meaningful, the most memorable lesson-learned was how my American na?veté soon ruffled Magdolenová’s feathers – and awakened me to the reality. She was understandably anxious about my role, and to be fair to her, she was right to be.

Imagine from her perspective: she knew better than anyone how complex and sensitive the Roma situation was. Then she saw me: well-intentioned, but a relative novice in Roma issues, stride into her newsroom. What did I know about the broader context? Of Slovakia’s current political climate? About its post-Communist media? Or how anti-Roma racism in the media shaped public attitudes?

Relatively little, of course. Though I immersed myself in studying the reality, these lessons take time to absorb. What I knew for sure about the Slovak media environment was that, like the Hungarian media, it was full of ugly stereotypes about the Roma: Poor, dirty, lazy, uncivilized, thieving, and so on.

From my American mindset, this was the kind of overt, extreme stuff that I couldn’t imagine in modern, mainstream US media. Not to say that racist portrayals don’t pop up in the media. They do, certainly. However, when they occur, right-wing media usually presents it more subtly: as so-called “dog whistles” that signal to an audience already predisposed to prejudice. Next, the mainstream media will typically denounce such portrayals – signaling to the broader audience why they’re unacceptable.

At that time, while it became normal to hear blood-curdling words uttered in the Hungarian or Slovak media, I don’t recall in mainstream US media any content or commentators spew anything equal to “Black violence” or “Latino criminality” – until Donald Trump ran for President in 2016. Among Trump’s greatest sins during his four years in the White House was how he made it more acceptable, even tolerated, to be publicly racist. Among right-wing media, commentators, lawmakers, and others.

The US is no paradise, of course – especially in our race relations. Yet the majority of society consistently pushes back against such bigotry, whether it be in politics, the media, or on the streets.

Yet back then, in Slovakia and elsewhere in this region, only a tiny segment of civil society struck an anti-racist position. Their voices were also relatively muted. Meanwhile, the hatred deepened.

So here I was, an American walking into the Roma Press Agency office, with a mistaken mission in mind: If much of the Slovak media had swung rightward, I’d help show my Romani colleagues how to produce “fair and balanced” coverage – from the middle of the spectrum. The public would respect our neutrality and even-handedness, I reasoned. Maybe we’d even become a model for mainstream media.

Magdolenová had little patience for my na?veté – and stark misunderstanding of her long-pursued mission. She set me straight, immediately. This was no place for idealistic neutrality or altruistic balance, she explained. The pendulum had swung so far in one direction, it needed a counterweight.

I’ll show what she meant, in just a moment. But let me say: She was absolutely right. And her insight quickly pried open my mind to a fresh outlook: the need for Human Rights-Based Journalism.

Personally, I regret not publishing something, back then, to document my revelation and what Magdolenová taught me. That was before I committed to chronicling all of my meaningful work experiences. However, I tried to make it right by referencing my Kosice stint in this 2010 commentary:

Here’s the most relevant passage, as I describe my experience with the trilingual Roma Press Agency:

At RPA, I watched a bare-bones staff work to get out coverage of their community, in Slovak, English and Romani. I also saw them do something that opened my mind to the Roma reality. It was their feature program on television, “So Vakeres?”?– or in Romani,?What are you saying?

At first I thought it might be a “fair and balanced” program on Roma issues, to offer the public an alternative to the generally one-sided reporting that perpetuates some of the worst?Roma stereotypes. Wrong. This was a half-hour program that portrayed Roma unfailingly in a positive light.

My very American take on this was: Wait, if you’re only showing the other side, isn’t that, um, nothing more than pro-Roma propaganda? I’ll never forget what the RPA chief, Kristína Magdolenová, told me. I don’t remember verbatim, so I’ll paraphrase:

“You don’t understand. The hatred has been planted so deep, there’s no space for high-minded, Western-liberal, even-handedness in broadcasting. The Roma are so beaten down by society’s perception of them, many have themselves developed low esteem for their own identity and peoplehood.”

With that in mind, said Magdolenová, the RPA target-audience was primarily the Roma themselves: to remind them of their humanity. But the second targe- audience was equally striking: the ordinary Slovaks genuinely curious about Roma culture, and those who in fact have some warm feelings for the Roma – or, at least for their Roma neighbor or colleague, past or present. In a battle for Slovak hearts and minds, it was hard to argue with her rationale. It made sense.

That 2007 experience generated lasting lessons. Firstly, I felt greater empathy for what the Roma were truly up against. It’s hard enough to change one person’s attitude. But an entire society’s?

Beyond that, both my journalism and teaching benefitted. American ideals like fairness, balance and neutralityaren’t always the answer. Context matters, as does the core objective. Sometimes, the situation may require a corrective measure, like counter-messaging and counter-balancing content.

Moreover, if I hoped to be an effective, impactful teacher, I shouldn’t impose my journalistic style or expectations onto an alien environment. Adapt to the reality, then modify my approach.

Since then, I’ve applied this pedagogical principle everywhere. Mostly notably, regarding my students from China. For example, in Chapter Twenty-Two, I described my initial experience teaching Chinese Journalism students in Hong Kong. Then in Chapter Twenty-Nine, I’ll explain how once I moved to Beijing and began teaching at mainland universities, I steered clear of teaching students US-style Watchdog Journalism – where we hold officials and leaders accountable for their words and deeds.

That’s risky in a place like China. Instead, I adapted to their reality and developed my own hybrid form of Journalism and Communications, which I called Cautious Communications: I taught students how to illuminate a societal challenge; yet, rather than harp on what’s not being done – which implicitly criticizes the rulers, even the system – we’d first highlight what exactly the state had achieved so far.

Next, we’d introduce the challenges that remain, to improve the situation. To be clear, our storyline would go like this: While XYZ has been achieved, ABC challenges remain.

These stories may be less aggressive, yet still raise awareness of an issue, while being packed with credible evidence and humanizing content. In the process, I learned, they may even turn out fairer, more accurate and nuanced: not presenting an issue as black-and-white, but in shades of grey. With such a cautious approach, I’d also dodge the possibility of getting myself, or my students, into trouble.

Writing About the Roma

Inspired by my trio of training trips to Kosice in 2007, I began tracking Roma issues more closely. But training fellow journalists wasn’t enough; I felt the tug to generate my own reportage, too.

In early 2008, I wrote my first two Roma pieces from Bratislava, which was then published on TOL’s website. Again, the TOL team not only offered their own trainings, but published a webzine on news and trends across the post-Communist world. Including, a healthy appetite for Roma-related topics. Here was my first piece, on present-day repercussions of the Romani Holocaust:

Here’s my second piece, which explored the link between mounting anti-Roma incitement and the growing far-right movement:

Now attuned to Roma issues, I continually looked for ways to contribute to the oeuvre of reporting from the region. On trips for other clients, I’d occasionally also delve into Roma-related topics.

For example, while on a 2009 reporting-trip to Bulgaria – to preview crucial elections – for my longtime client, the Christian Science Monitor, I came across a voting situation that also illuminated the treatment of Bulgarian Roma. Ever the freelancer, I wrote an extra piece for The Global Post newspaper (which now can be found at TheWorld.Org):

Not long after that, I travelled to Kosovo to explore its post-war recovery. Specifically, I visited the politically sensitive city of Mitrovica, which was ethnically divided between Serbs and Albanians. Caught in the crossfire was the Roma community, many of whom had been driven from their homes.

Moved by their temporary living conditions, I shot a slew of photos, edited them down and offered a batch to TOL as a photo-essay. They published it here:

While on a reporting trip to Bulgaria for another client, I produced this piece about the Roma:

Back in Bratislava, it was now easier for me to connect the Roma-related dots: recognizing the trends, patterns and commonalities regionwide – regarding their communal existence, their treatment at the hands of the majority, and so on – while spotlighting unique aspects within each country.

I was proud to write the following first-person essay, which also alluded to my early trainings in Kosice. Yet this piece aimed to remind readers of the paradox: While Central European countries angled to blend into modern Europe, they still tolerated some shameful treatment of the Roma. I published the piece on The Mantle, the new client I introduced in Chapter Twenty-Three: Send a Postcard.

TOL Offers a Project

By early 2010, I was a central member of the TOL team: as a Senior Trainer, leading the reporting project of TOL’s biannual Foreign Correspondent Course – a project I’d created as “The Course I’d Always Wanted” when I broke into the business. I was also instrumental to TOL’s revenue-generating from Chinese students, guiding their visiting teams in January 2008 and January 2009.

Moreover, after carrying out my own training for Romani journalists in 2007, then contributing stories like those above to TOL’s webzine, I’d demonstrated my seriousness about the Roma, too.

So, when a training grant emerged to train Romani journalists in the Balkans, the TOL team turned to me. I leapt at the chance. Not just because the freelancer in me always looked for meaningful, decent-paying ways to fill my schedule. It also felt like a small, but significant, way to make a difference.

I was also excited at the prospect of a new form of education. I’d always taught folks in the classroom, from Brooklyn to Trnava, from Brno to Prague. Now I’d guide three Romani journalists in the field – individually, shoulder-to-shoulder. Not just preaching principles and sharing skills, abstractly, but showing how to do it, in reality. On their own home-turf. Reporting several stories with each journalist.

The fund covered three trips for me, as I joined: a Bulgarian Romani journalist in Sofia, Bulgaria; a Romanian Romani journalist in Bucharest, Romania; and a Macedonian Romani journalist in Skopje, Macedonia. Reporting with her would include a quick trip next door, into post-conflict Kosovo.

They were multilingual, but their English was imperfect. As were their writing skills. Here, then, is how it worked: we’d report the story together, having planned in advance where to go, what to see, whom to interview, and so on. With some flexibility built-in. Next, we'd strategize just before we'd enter a new environment or meet a new person to interview. Afterward, we'd assess what went well - and why; what didn't go well - and why; and what more we needed, moving forward, to bring to life our story - or to fill remaining holes.

My partner would write up their notes – the best they could, in storytelling form – and send it to me. I’d provide them with feedback, as their mentor. But I largely took over: revising their text, to make it as professional as possible for the TOL readership.

Both of our names appeared atop the stories, with mine first - a fair acknowledgment of our contributions. TOL began publishing the pieces over the next few months, spacing them out as special features on various challenges that Roma face across the region.

But before they were published, I had some storytelling fun during my week-long, February 2010 training trip to Romania. Inspired by the blogging I'd just done during my teaching stint in Hong Kong, I blogged a handful of stories along my Romanian journey - about some of the unique folks we met. I published these stories on my website, with my photos, then re-published them on TOL's site for its coverage of Roma region wide.

I even created a photo-essay from inside the community of Kalderash Roma:

Forever the freelancer, I also pitched a story from that trip, to another client: The Global Post. That publication no longer exists, but I found my reportage here:

I'll now re-publish the entire series of TOL stories produced through my shoulder-to-shoulder training, in chronological order. But that's not all. During this stretch of 2010, I wasn’t just immersed in Roma issues, but impassioned about them, too. So, I explored Roma-related topics for my own website, as well as for several clients. I’ve woven them among the TOL stories, in order of publication. Almost all of them include my photos. I also show how I then re-published those TOL pieces on my own website, JordanInk.

Next came my call for a more "human rights-based" approach to local Journalism:

The following TOL piece explored tensions between tradition and modernity in Macedonia:

The following TOL piece explored criticism of teen marriage among Romania's Roma:

While having written that piece about teen marriage among Romanian Roma, I pitched my first story to perhaps the most famous women’s periodical in America: Ms. Magazine. It was published in the Summer 2010 issue:

The following TOL piece explored the issue of teen pregnancy among Bulgarian Roma:

After investing so much time and effort into investigating the resurgence of Hungary’s far-right, I pitched a feature to the prestigious American publication, Foreign Policy.

I was particularly proud to produce this piece, which implored my trainees, journalists and others to ignore scary-sounding words about the Roma - and meet them in person. I even developed a method for how to enter more intimidating neighborhoods, with confidence.

The following TOL piece explored infection rates among imprisoned Romanian Roma:

Meanwhile, back in Bratislava, I reported on the illuminating way in which Slovakia's media reported on the shooting death of a Slovak Roma:

I’d now probed the reality of Roma living in Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia. I felt it was time to do a deep-dive in the place where my interest in how minorities - namely Roma and Jews - were mistreated, first took root: in Hungary. I then had my long investigative piece published in the World Policy Journal:

[Missing: https://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2010/10/05/world-policy-air-michael-jordan]

By now, my work on behalf of the Roma had earned enough credibility that a researcher, Jud Nirenberg , approached me to include two of our well-researched TOL articles – on teen pregnancy in Bulgaria and teen marriage in Romania – as chapters in his book, Gypsy Sexuality: Romani and Outsider Perspectives on Intimacy.

I myself then interviewed Jud Nuremberg, to explore his inspirations for the book:

Several years later, I was interviewed by Shayna Plaut, who cited me in her book:

Meanwhile, Hungary remained a passion of mine, as my own children were citizens.

Foreign Policy had become a client, so I pitched the magazine a second related piece:

As evidence of how I consistently had the Roma "on my mind," in 2011, I generated a trio of reports, one year after Hungary's worst-ever environmental disaster. Among the angles I explored, for multiple clients, was how this tragedy had uniquely affected local Roma. Here's that complete series of coverage:

Before we left Slovakia, I wrote one last piece about the Roma - injecting a bit of optimism.

Even after we moved from Central Europe, to Southern Africa, I sounded the alarm one last time about Hungary – with a piece on how this post-dictatorial state was backsliding on its commitments to democratic rule and allowing for its own "Putinization."

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