A Call To Action: Arab Artists in a Revolution

To all my readers, listeners, viewers, followers, friends, family and random acquaintances from across the planet, I bring you some significant news.  This fall, together with the great journalist, broadcaster, listener and my friend Christopher Lydon, we have decided to embark on a journalistic journey to North Africa.  Egypt and Tunisia specifically, to seek out the storytellers. We want to hear from the heart and soul of the revolution, beyond the politics, beyond the expert analysis, there are those who create, challenge and observe culture, who can give us the long view of what is such an ancient and inspiring part of the world.

In order to do this, we’re calling on our audiences to support the project. There are many kickstarter projects out there these days, but as the marine saying goes “this one is ours.”  

That’s where you come in, as the people to whom we answer to, without need of advertisements or institutions telling us how to do our work, your financial support is vital.  Go check out the kickstarter page, where we hope you would be a part of this experience by backing us and getting us ever closer to the financial goal.  Those funds will take care of travel, shelter, and communication costs on a shoe string budget, as has been my specialty for the past 10 years as a traveling new media reporter. From there we will bring you the voices as podcasts and radio programs, as well as some video and photo reports.  The stories we intend to get will be both insightful and inspiring, in ways no conventional media would bother trying to do in this era of fast and shallow journalism.

So there you have it, if ever there was a time to take action, if the work on this site or the fantastic body of work Christopher Lydon has compiled through the course of his long career has ever spoken to you, then let this be the project you really join us on.  Get involved, help us reach the goal, and this fall – enjoy the results you helped produce!