The article appeared in the Winter 2002 issue of the Ohio Journalist, produced at Ohio University. It is reprinted by permission.
If life’s experiences could be captured in a bag, visiting professional Kenneth Freed’s would be a well-worn knapsack, bulging at the seams. After reporting on 106 countries during his journalism career, Freed has endless stories and a deep understanding of international reporting that he now shares with Ohio University students.
As the Scripps-Howard visiting professional for the 2001-02 academic year, Freed gives students the opportunity to learn from an international journalist, and he has been able to employ his theories on what future journalists’ education should be.
Uninterested in a desk job, Freed chose to focus on reporting after his graduation from the University of Nebraska (in 1963). His career as a journalist began in 1963 as a staff writer and editor for the Charleston, W.Va., Associated Press Bureau, and he started participating in the international arena when he became a diplomatic correspondent for the AP in 1971. His tenure as a Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent began in 1978 and later took him around the world, where he served as chief of bureaus in Iran, Argentina, El Salvador, the Caribbean and Toronto, Canada. “I was a hired gun to go oversees,” he said.
Modest about his accomplishments, Freed doesn’t see his coverage of big stories as a string of trophies for the mantle. “I don’t look at it (reporting) in terms of rewards. It’s just what I do for a
living,” Freed said. “It is generally exciting and, in that sense, rewarding.”
Freed left the Times in 1996, exhausted from covering such intense stories for so long, and headed for early retirement. “I got too old for that roll-in-the-dirt kind of journalism,” he said. However, early retirement for Freed simply translated into different kinds of experiences.
While helping to revamp the Omaha World-Herald to include more international coverage, he gained his first introduction to sharing knowledge as a teacher. In 1996 he became a visiting professional at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked with students one-on-one rather than in a classroom. By 1999 he was spending time as a Knight International Press Fellow in Lebanon, which also placed him in a teaching role. Serendipity brought him to Ohio after he saw an ad for the position in an issue of Editor and Publisher. He now teaches news writing, international mass media, foreign correspondence and reporting contemporary issues at the school.
Especially with the onslaught of international news since Sept. 11, Freed said he found it difficult to be distant from the kinds of stories he used to handle. Now a small television set in his Sing Tao Center office flickers the blue light of newscasts onto his desk, keeping him up to the minute on current events. “I miss the urgency and intensity of the reporting I used to do,” he said.
He is certain his journalistic instincts help in teaching. He said he is constantly interrogating students to help them learn. A reporting truth he applies in his classes is the idea that no matters are ever truly settled or set. “‘It all depends’ is one of my favorite answers,” he said.
As for using his intense stories of reporting overseas to make his students sit wide-eyed at their desks, his humility won’t permit it. “I don’t like to tell war stories. I will talk about it and use a few of my stories as examples. But I am not here to promote my own experiences.”
After his time at Athens ends, Freed is open to all possibilities. He is considering doing research for journalistic centers, but some time to relax is on the agenda for certain. “I am definitely looking forward to traveling with my wife,” he said.
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