FISHBONES, POPES, CORKS, COBBLESTONES AND AIRCRAFT CARRIERS Adventures with AP cameraman Gianfranco Stara This week my colleague Gianfranco Stara is retiring after 30 years working for the Associated Press. Gianfranco Stara and I were hired together in October of 1994 to open the AP Television office in Rome. He was the cameraman, and in case …
ADVENTURES WITH ASSOCIATED PRESS CAMERAMAN GIANFRANCO STARA Read More »
Dear Blog Readers, After a hiatus of over a year, I am back, more or less. The last post I wrote was on March 3rd, 2020, shortly before Italy went into a national lockdown on March 9th. It is strange to look back at those photos in the last post, Rome in the Time of …
I have a little piece of good news to share with you which will explain why, for the next year, I won’t be posting so often on this blog, I am the newly-elected President of the Foreign Press Association in Italy (Associazione della Stampa Estera in Italia www.stampaestera.org), the biggest foreign press association in the …
Dear Blog Readers, I have been working for months on a long story for AP on the tens of thousands of Nigerian girls who are victims of sex trafficking to Italy. AP finally came out with the story for International Women’s Day on March 8th. Here are the links: TV VERSION: https://vids.press/ap-archive/only-on-ap-italy-failing-to-help-migrants-trafficked-as-sex-slaves/ WIRE VERSION: https://www.apnews.com/df4b0f007cd7475e90754e99189f5572 …
Nineteen-year-old Precious is a smiling, laughing, living testament to human resilience. She sits at the end of a table in a safe house near Rome for Nigerian sex slaves who have managed to escape their exploiters and tells me her story. The first impression of Precious, with her beautiful, gentle face, smooth skin, lively brown …
My frustration over the bad attitude of Romans has boiled over this week and is spilling into this blog…. It started as I was walking across Piazza del Popolo heading home the other day. There is a lot of activity in the Piazza in the late afternoon and early evening. Usually a street entertainer is …
Dear Blog Readers, I have been working with my AP wire colleague Fran D’Emilio on a story on women fighting back against violence in Italy that went out this morning as part of the AP’s many stories for International Women’s Day. Fran wrote an excellent story (see link here: Scarred Survivors) – I handled the TV …
Dear Blog Readers, Just a quick note to share with all of you a story I have been working on for AP that came out earlier this week. It is about the terrible problem that Italy is facing in its efforts to catch human traffickers. The story focuses on a young man named Marc Samie …