Former AP correspondent to speak on media, international issues

November 15, 2006

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Mort Rosenblum, visiting professor from the Department of Journalism at the University of Arizona, will speak on “Understanding International Issues and Why the Media Fails Us” at 7 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 16, in the New Physics Building 1001. Rosenblum’s talk is sponsored by the University of Florida’s International Center, in collaboration with the Transnational and Global Studies Center and the Florida Journal of International Law. Admission is free and open to the public.

Rosenblum has reported on nearly every major international conflict since the Congo mercenary wars and the Biafra secession in the 1960s. From 1970 to 1973, he covered Vietnam, the breakup of Pakistan and war in Ceylon. Between 1973 and 1976, he wrote the first dispatches from Argentina,revealing the government’s secret “dirty war” against left-wing dissidents. He returned for the Falklands War.

In 1981, Rosenblum broke the Hama massacre story in Syria and was the first reporter into southern Lebanon, following Ariel Sharon’s invasion in 1983. Rosenblum’s reporting in Central America linked the Reagan and Bush administrations to drug smuggling into the United States by CIA-supported Contras. He covered U.S. invasions of Grenada and Haiti, and has written widely from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and elsewhere in the Middle East. Rosenblum was the executive editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris from 1979 to 1981, and chief international correspondent of The Associated Press from 1981 to 2004.

Rosenblum has written from 200 countries or territories on subjects ranging from environmental calamity to tango dancing by the Seine. He has written extensively about AIDS, since Dr. Jonathan Mann’s pioneering work in the Congo. In 1985, he focused on rogue states developing weapons of mass destruction. Since 2000, he has written widely on the European Union. Beyond his reporting, Rosenblum has lectured frequently on the role of the media in international affairs and has conducted training sessions to help public and private officials deal with reporters in crisis situations.