On July 1, students in the journalism course “Shockwaves: Reporting on Climate, Migration, and Culture in Greece,” led a conversation at the Princeton Athens Center with two leading Greek journalists, Nektaria Stamouli and Elena Becatoros.
Stamouli is the Eastern Mediterranean correspondent for POLITICO and deputy editor in chief of Kathimerini’s English-language edition. Becatoros is a bureau chief at The Associated Press, where she oversees coverage of southeast Europe. The wide-ranging discussion explored the evolving media landscape and the realities of reporting on contemporary Greece, a place Stamouli described as “a small country with so much news.”
Drawing on lessons from their class and firsthand reporting in Athens, Thessaly and Crete, students asked the veteran journalists about the stories they wish were being covered, the challenges of reporting on migration and climate, and the impact of newsroom cuts on investigative journalism.
After taking questions from the audience, Becatoros and Stamouli asked students to think about their own roles as journalists and as consumers of news. “You are our target audience – what are you interested in? How can we get you to click?” Becatoros asked.
The event was attended by University faculty, graduate students, alumni, staff, and members of the Princeton Club of Greece. Following the lively talk, Dimitri Gondicas, director of the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, encouraged guests to continue the conversation at a reception hosted by the Princeton Athens Center.
Co-taught by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eliza Griswold and longtime international correspondent and cultural curator Rachel Donadio, the five-week course, “Shockwaves: Reporting on Climate, Migration, and Culture in Greece,” trains undergraduates in the craft of international reporting as they examine pressing global issues shaping Greece and the wider world. The course is sponsored and administered by the Humanities Council’s Program in Journalism with additional support from the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies.
