Where in the world is Doug Cosper?

Doug Cosper edits student stories in the shade of a giant tree in rural Botswana.

Globe-trekking journalism instructor Doug Cosper (MA ’83) is scheduled to return in May from a four-month McGee Journalism Fellowship at the University of Botswana in Gaborone.

“I’m in the throes of helping the young Media Studies Department here launch a student newspaper and Web site,” he wrote in an e-mail to the School in early March.

“It’s odd, and not a little troubling, that I work to develop journalism on the assumption that better information gives people the opportunity to have choices in their lives. And then when they choose to build lives similar to ours, I don’t really care to be there anymore.” He previously taught journalism in Azerbaijan, Romania and Cambodia.

Cosper said he was surprised to learn, though, that he was actually behind the curve when it came to the Web site he’d planned to create in Botswana.

“After bringing Dreamweaver with me, I am told by the young folks here that it is so out now, and they are building the Web site with Flash,” he wrote.

“We’re trying to put out a paper independently of the university, including financially.

“The kids are willing but not too able, as they had been taught nothing of journalism before I arrived. Our lead story is trying to sort out whether one in six or one in four people here are HIV-positive. The national press hasn’t a clue.”

The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) reported on its Web site that the first edition of the newspaper was published March 21 with a press run of 5,000 copies. “How many HIV-positive students? Don’t ask the University of Botswana,” proclaimed the headline of the lead story. Another front-page story was headlined, “Library security policy exposes bags to thieves.” The companion Web site, UBHorizon.com, was launched April 1.

The ICFJ report quoted Cosper as saying, “My guess is that this newspaper is bringing the highest concentration of journalism learning ever to the department. The students are getting hooked.”

The student newspaper can be seen at www.icfj.org/mcgee/botswana.html.