Jason Maloney '87: A Lens on the World

Jason Maloney '87 is an award-winning cameraman, editor, and news and documentary producer specializing in foreign affairs coverage. Over the past two decades, he has reported for PBS “NewsHour” and “Newshour Weekend” from more than 30 countries. When it was difficult to report abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic, he focused on social justice issues in the U.S. His latest documentary, “Rebirth of the Range,” tells the story of the U.S. government’s return of the 19,000-acre National Bison Range in Montana to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. 

Maloney is a clinical professor at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, where he teaches courses on multimedia production and international crisis reporting. In 2014, he launched NYU GlobalBeat, an international reporting program that brings graduate students overseas for hands-on video reporting for PBS. He is also co-founder of the Bureau for International Reporting, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding vital international television news programming.

We sat down with Maloney to ask him about his early inspiration for his career and memorable moments in field reporting and teaching.

govs: What inspired you to pursue a career in international journalism? 

First and foremost, I’m driven by curiosity. During college, I was fortunate to meet George Seldes, the legendary journalist and author of the book “A Witness to a Century.” At the time, he was in his late nineties and told me stories about meeting people like [Founder of the Russian Communist Party] Vladimir Lenin, [Italian dictator] Benito Mussolini, multiple American presidents, and, especially [Yugoslav revolutionary-turned-president] Josip Broz Tito and his beloved German shepherd, Tigar. Seeing that someone could have all these global experiences was inspiring. 

Then, in the fall of 1989, when I was doing an exchange program in Budapest in Eastern Europe, my friend and I caught wind of all these changes happening in Germany and Czechoslovakia. It was very easy for us to just get on trains and travel there, so I got to be there when the very first piece of the Berlin Wall was removed. Then, a few weeks later, I was back in Prague in the middle of their revolution, with hundreds of thousands of people out on the streets basically overthrowing their regime. 

It all came together—meeting Seldes and then getting a taste of seeing things myself—and it drove me to try to approach that level of being able to witness history. 

 

govs: Were there any Govs experiences that tied into your curiosity and storytelling?

In my senior year, I took a comparative world literature class taught by English teacher Joanna Grugeon. The final assignment was to pick a country and write a chapter of a book on anything we wanted—but from the perspective of a person living in that place. I chose to be somebody from Communist East Germany, and it was an incredible assignment. 

Another inspiring faculty member was [Arts Department Chair] Paul Wann, who was my dorm parent and also my English teacher. He just got me. He appreciated my curiosity. 

govs: What does it take to be a successful journalist?

The curiosity has to be there; it’s an important piece of the puzzle. But you also need persistence and adaptability, particularly for video journalism and overseas work. One thing I also tell my students is that you have to have the ability to live on a slim margin. In my case, working in public service journalism, fundraising, and entrepreneurialism have been key. I left the newsroom for the last time in a formal capacity back in 2000 to be a freelancer, so I’ve had to develop coalitions among different broadcasters and news outlets and bring in partnerships. I eventually founded a nonprofit, the Bureau for International Reporting, to raise money from foundations to fund international news reporting.

Govs: When you’re covering foreign news, how do you ensure the authenticity of local voices? 

It’s the classic upside-down pyramid: I start on the global level with international organizations and humanitarian organizations like the United Nations, World Food Program, or Unicef. Their interlocutors connect us to someone on the national level where we’re going to do the story—and then you get into the local level. Each of these organizations has different partner groups that will enable introductions so you can reach your end goal to find the human who tells you the story in that place and why it matters. 

Mental health in the field of journalism is getting more attention than it used to, but I want my students to know that it’s okay to seek help and be vulnerable...

Govs: How do you handle the emotional part of the job, particularly covering humanitarian crises, warfare, and marginalized communities?

The stuff that stays with me the most is hearing the stories from people in interviews and intimate settings: what happened to them, what they survived, what they went through. 

I make the topic of mental health and journalism a big part of my teaching. My students aren’t going into war zones, but they are doing internships or jobs early in their careers where they have to screen raw footage—from war, a police scene, or an accident—to determine if there is anything newsworthy. And they’re going to witness traumatic things happening on that video, so I teach coping strategies on how to prepare for that. For example, turning down the volume on the first screening could be useful. Mental health in the field of journalism is getting more attention than it used to, but I want my students to know that it’s okay to seek help and be vulnerable when things like that happen.

Govs: You developed the nonprofit NYU GlobalBeat in 2014 to provide funding to take students overseas for in-field reporting. What has that been like?

It’s ideal when I can work alongside students. Particularly when the stakes are high because we have to produce something together in the field, it’s more effective to show them directly through GlobalBeat’s “teaching hospital” model. Also, foreign reporting can be expensive, so GlobalBeat helps students understand the importance of building partnerships and coalitions to fundraise in order to work internationally in public service journalism. 

In the short term, the class projects are getting published and receiving a high level of recognition, such as Emmy nominations—including one for a story about forced child begging in Senegal in 2014. GlobalBeat's long-term goal is to educate new reporters to carry on public service international work.