Andrew Meldrum

Last updated

Andrew Meldrum (born 1951) is an American journalist who has concentrated on Africa and human rights. He worked in Zimbabwe for 23 years. Currently Meldrum is Africa News Editor for The Associated Press, working in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was a correspondent for The Economist and The Guardian in Zimbabwe from 1980 to May 18, 2003 before being expelled by the Zimbabwean government because the government objected to his reports exposing state torture. [1]

Contents

Biography

Meldrum attended high school at Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio, graduating in 1970. [2] He then studied history at Middlebury College [3] and got a Master's degree from Columbia University School of Journalism in 1977. [4]

In 2004 Meldrum won the Schork Award for "courageous international journalism" from Columbia University. In his career and stay in Zimbabwe, he wrote a book Where We Have Hope: A Memoir of Zimbabwe which describes Zimbabwean events during his 23 years stay. [5]

He was at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow in the 2007/2008 academic year where his research focused on the role of the press in Zimbabwe and South Africa. [6]

From 2008 to 2013 he taught journalism courses at Harvard Summer School and Harvard Extension School, including advising students on Harvard Extension's Masters in Journalism programme.

Arrest and expulsion

In May 2002, Meldrum was briefly jailed after the Zimbabwean government charged him with violating a statute against "publishing a falsehood" for reporting a man's claims that his wife was decapitated by Mugabe supporters (Zanu-PF) in front of her two young children. It later became evident that the man had fabricated the decapitation story. Meldrum's trial lasted two months and he could have faced two years in jail. He was defended by Zimbabwean lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa. Meldrum was acquitted and the magistrate ruled that he had acted as a responsible journalist, only to receive a deportation order. [7] In a second legal case, a judge ruled that Meldrum, as the holder of a permit of permanent residence, had the legal right to stay and work in the country.

Meldrum continued his work and exposed how a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change was beaten in police custody and later died. On May 18, 2003, Meldrum was abducted by Zimbabwean authorities and illegally expelled from Zimbabwe to South Africa where he continued to write for The Guardian on Zimbabwe and events in southern Africa. His lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, had obtained court orders allowing him to remain in the country but he was abducted by police and detained before being forcibly expelled from Zimbabwe. [8]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

Jay Anthony Lukas was an American journalist and author, probably best known for his 1985 book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families. Common Ground is a classic study of race relations, class conflict, and school busing in Boston, Massachusetts, as seen through the eyes of three families: one upper-middle-class white, one working-class white, and one working-class African-American.

Charles "Mase" Onyango-Obbo, also Charles Onyango Obbo, is a Ugandan author, journalist, and former Editor of Mail & Guardian Africa. He is a former Managing Editor of The Monitor, a daily Ugandan newspaper, former Executive Editor for the Africa and Digital Media Division with Nation Media Group. Considered one of the finest journalists in Africa, Onyango-Obbo is a political commentator on issues in East Africa and the African Great Lakes region. He writes a column, "Ear to the Ground", in The Monitor, a second column in the regional weekly The EastAfrican, and a third in the Daily Nation.

Barry Leon Bearak is an American journalist and educator who has worked as a reporter and correspondent for The Miami Herald, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. He taught journalism as a visiting professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Johnson (writer)</span>

Ian Johnson is a Canadian-born American writer and independent scholar known for his long-time reporting and a series of books on China and Germany. His Chinese name is Zhang Yan (張彦). Johnson writes regularly for The New York Review of Books and The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Finbarr O'Reilly</span> Irish/Canadian independent photographer

Finbarr O'Reilly is a Welsh-born Irish/Canadian independent photographer. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucius W. Nieman</span>

Lucius William Nieman was an American businessman and founder of The Milwaukee Journal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Harwood (journalist)</span> American journalist

John Harwood is an American journalist who worked as White House Correspondent for CNN from February 2021 until September 2022. Harwood was formerly an editor-at-large for CNBC. He was the chief Washington Correspondent for CNBC and a contributor for The New York Times. He wrote a weekly column entitled "The Caucus" that appeared on Monday about Washington politics and policy. Before joining the Times, he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gustavo Gorriti</span> Peruvian journalist (born 1948)

Gustavo Andrés Gorriti Ellenbogen is a Peruvian journalist known for his reporting on rebel groups, government corruption, and drug trafficking. In 2011, the European Journalism Centre described him as having "been awarded more prizes than probably any other Peruvian journalist". He is the founder of IDL-Reporteros.

Chris McGreal is a reporter for The Guardian.

Peter James Spielmann is a veteran reporter in the foreign service of The Associated Press, and is an editor and supervisor on AP's North America desk. He taught at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism from 1989–93, and from 2001–07.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christina Lamb</span> British journalist and author

Christina Lamb OBE is a British journalist and author. She is the chief foreign correspondent of The Sunday Times.

Geoffrey Nyarota is a Zimbabwean journalist and human rights activist. Born in colonial Southern Rhodesia, he trained as a teacher before beginning his career with a Zimbabwean state-owned newspaper, The Herald. As editor of the state-owned Bulawayo Chronicle in 1989, he helped to break the "Willowgate" scandal, which resulted in several resignations from the cabinet of President Robert Mugabe.

Lorie Conway is an American independent producer and filmmaker. Her work has received Peabody, DuPont and CableACE awards. In 1993–94, she was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University; she served for eight years as Vice President of the Nieman Foundation Advisory Board and has served for ten years as an Associate of the Boston Public Library. Lorie Conway's work on Forgotten Ellis Island, the first film and book about the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, was supported by three grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. For over two years, her production company, Boston Film and Video, filmed the former hospital complex on Ellis Island. Recent film projects includes Beatrice Mtetwa and the Rule of Law, about one of the bravest lawyers in Africa—who has been defending victims of Robert Mugabe's brutal regime in Zimbabwe. Tiny Ripples of Hope, a sequel to that film, is currently in development about a school named after Mtetwa which is teaching students about their human rights in Uganda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moeletsi Mbeki</span>

Moeletsi Goduka Mbeki is a South African political economist and the deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs, an independent think tank based at the University of the Witwatersrand, and is a political analyst for Nedcor Bank. He is a member of the executive council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) which is based in London. He is the younger brother of former President Thabo Mbeki and son of ANC leader Govan Mbeki. He has been a frequent critic of President Mbeki.

The Mark Lynton History Prize is an annual award in the amount of $10,000 given to a book "of history, on any subject, that best combines intellectual or scholarly distinction with felicity of expression". The prize is one of three awards given as part of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize administered by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism and by the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Hopewell Rugoho-Chin'ono is a Zimbabwean journalist. He has won numerous awards in journalism and has worked in both print and broadcasting journalism. He was a fellow at Harvard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olusegun Osoba</span> Nigerian politician and journalist (born 1939)

Chief Olusegun Osoba is a Nigerian journalist and politician who served twice as governor of Ogun State first from 1992 to 1993 during the Nigerian Third Republic and then from 1999 to 2003.

Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean journalist, travel writer, and memoirist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beatrice Mtetwa</span>

Beatrice Mtetwa is a Swazi was born 1957 and naturalised Zimbabwean lawyer who has been internationally recognized for her defense of journalists and press freedom. The New York Times described her in 2008 as "Zimbabwe's top human rights lawyer".

On 16 September 1994, there was a UFO sighting outside Ruwa, Zimbabwe. Sixty-two pupils at the Ariel School aged between six and twelve claimed that they saw one or more silver craft descend from the sky and land on a field near their school. One or more creatures dressed all in black then approached the children and telepathically communicated to them a message with an environmental theme, frightening the children and causing them to cry.

References

  1. ↑ "Zimbabwe evicts our correspondent". The Economist. 2003-05-22. Archived from the original on 21 April 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-10.
  2. ↑ "Western Reserve Academy - Waring Prize" . Retrieved 2011-05-12.
  3. ↑ "Biography". Center for International Development, Harvard University. Archived from the original on 5 April 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-10.
  4. ↑ "Profile in Journalism". Archived from the original on 2007-08-13. Retrieved 2008-07-16.
  5. ↑ "Foreign correspondent biographies". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2007-04-10.
  6. ↑ Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University
  7. ↑ Peta, Basildon (2002-07-16). "Zimbabwe reporter is acquitted and ordered to leave". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-10.
  8. ↑ "Freedom prize for Zimbabwe lawyer". ak-sophiabooks.org. Archived from the original on 2007-08-12. Retrieved 2007-04-10.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.