"The U.S. is the Best Place in the World for a Journalist"

Ephrem Kossaify is the Arab News' New York Correspondent, covering the U.S. and the United Nations.

Ephrem Kossaify is the Arab News' New York Correspondent, covering the U.S. and the United Nations. He started off as a war correspondent, covering conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and South Lebanon, and the refugee crises that ensued, for Future Television, where he also worked as a primetime news anchor, writer. and producer. Ephrem has been in the U.S. for 20 years, during which he’s reported extensively on the U.S. political system, including election coverage, and has produced a number of documentaries exploring American society and culture, called "the Americans."

As a foreign correspondent, how did your journey begin in the U.S.?

It all began after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and D.C. In the wake of those attacks, and as America picked up the rubble, the big question on every American’s mind back then was, Why do they hate us? 

The administration of George W. Bush decided that part of the remedy for the chasm between the U.S. and the Middle East would be to introduce “the real America” to the Arab World. 

Efforts to win the hearts and minds of Arab populations thus included setting up an Arabic-language TV channel aiming at providing deeper insight into American politics and society, with a view to countering what many saw as the anti-American rhetoric prevalent on the airwaves of the most prominent Arab channels who were accused of exacerbating hate and terrorism. 

So I was one of nearly 150 journalists who in 2003 moved to the U.S. to work at the channel. I was 23 years old and I had never lived outside Lebanon. The only big assignment I had been on prior to that was the 2001 American invasion of Afghanistan, which I reported from Kandahar and Quetta, Pakistan. 

I found myself, in a matter of three weeks, leaving my Lebanese life behind and landing at Dulles Airport. It felt like entering a completely unknown, unexplored territory. As alienating as it was in the beginning, the prospect of the discovery of this new country was very thrilling. 

In your capacity as a foreign journalist based in the U.S., what is the most important part of your job? 

To constantly strive to deepen my understanding of the American system and convey its complexity to a faraway audience that only receives superficial, one-dimensional coverage of the U.S. Even the most astute Middle Eastern analysts lack the kind of insight that comes only from the daily observation of American life and politics, and daily interaction with average Americans. 

Look at all the perplexing mathematical gymnastics involved in the electoral system, for example, which is designed to give an equal say to remote, forgotten rural voters, as those who vote in New York and California. The system still boggles the mind of journalists who have covered elections for decades. You watch them every year explaining the rules again, learning new aspects of the system that they haven’t encountered before. 

Also, in the Middle East, there’s a sense that people’s individual destiny is linked with whoever is in the Oval Office. For example, since Biden was elected, many Lebanese and Middle Eastern youths have packed their bags, certain that Biden means open immigration for all. Few understand that the decision-making in the U.S. is far more complex than just a President issuing decrees. That’s another myth I strive to obviate in my work as well. 

The United Nations, where I have been a correspondent for Arab News for the past two years, is also a very complex place, a microcosm where people from all over the world try to navigate each other’s worldviews, guided by universal principles and values. But it is also misunderstood, despite Stephane Dujarric and other spokespersons basically elaborating on the Charter and the U.N. Principles on a daily basis in press briefings. 

What effect did your experience as a foreign correspondent in the U.S. have on your perspective of America? 

It is really that vast American society that everyone talks about but no one knows, to paraphrase the 19th-century Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America. That was actually the first book I read after I landed in America. And it was somehow an inspiration behind a road show that I did, called “The Americans,” which toured 35 states, interviewing Americans from all walks of life, from cowboys on Texas dude ranches to Hollywood producers and stars, to U.S. presidents and lawmakers. In the end, it is a country just like any other, with its richness, vastness, goodness, and its own share of suffering and darkness.  Although there are many challenges these days to freedom of speech in the world, and the U.S. is not immune to it, for me still, the level of freedom here is unrivaled by any other place. 

Americans have a political system, a democracy that is malleable and constantly course-correcting. As Bill Clinton put it:  “There is nothing wrong with America that can’t be cured by what is right in America.” For the first time, when I got here, I found myself hosting prime time news, with carte blanche to criticize any Arab leader, politician, with no red lines whatsoever. That taste of freedom was surreal in the beginning, the best thing I had ever experienced professionally, although I have to sadly admit that it came with a rather heavy  price: That of being in exile, away from home and family, in the safety of an environment that protects journalists like me, a safety that I always felt some guilt about enjoying while not being able to share it with people of my country.  

What lessons have you learned over the years of working as a foreign correspondent? 

That in order to understand the U.S., or any other country for that matter, it helps to begin by studying deeply and carefully the situation of minorities. How a country treats a minority, its underdog, is a true measure of how well it is doing, of its greatness. The plight of minorities reveals the cracks in the system where journalistic work should focus. You understand the first thing about America before you take an in-depth look at the history and current struggles and victories of African Americans. James Baldwin’s essays are a great place to start if you want to delve into the roots of systemic racism, which I think is America’s dark side, and so pervasive these days that there’s not a day that goes by where we don’t see its manifestations. 

Look for example at the coverage of the Ukraine war where you had these “accidental” racial slurs escaping the lips of the most veteran western journalists, supposedly “woke” and “anti-Trump,” who were indignant that the war in Ukraine is happening to people “with blue eyes and blond hair” and “not in a place like Syria where people are used to living amid raging wars.” 

Can you recall a story you did well and one you did not? What did you learn from this experience? 

When I first got here, I did a series of short documentaries on minority voters, to understand how on what basis do they vote and how do they make their voices heard. In the one I did on the Jewish minority, I used almost exclusively footage I shot in the Diamond district in New York, and in Williamsburg where the majority of Hassidic Jews live. My guest in the studio, who was also Jewish, was shocked by this “accidental anti-Semitic” display . He told me it was wrong by all standards. I dismissed his comment and refused to admit that it was anti-Semitism on my part. 

Later, I came to realize that most anti-Semitic actions and words, just like racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, seem subtle, casual, “accidental,” nothing threatening about them on the outside, although we all know where such thoughts could ultimately lead. 

I learned to be vigilant vis à vis my own mind process. Instead of deciding for myself what is offensive and what is not and trusting my own “good intentions,” I opened my eyes to the fact that only a person from that minority can tell you what is offensive and what is not, and it is not up to us to judge. 

After living here for almost 20 years, I believe we are all racists, consciously or not, and to varying degrees. We just have to watch our thoughts for a day or two to realize it. Self- examination of that kind is crucial I think for a reporter, whether foreign or local. 

One of the stories I enjoyed the most and is my personal favorite is the Deep Dive on the Jews of Lebanon that I did shortly after I joined Arab News.  I had never met any Lebanese Jew before that as they had all but deserted the country by the time I was born. Walking through Brooklyn neighborhoods where they live, listening to them exchange conversations in a Lebanese dialect with a Hebrew accent, smelling the food of home wafting out of their restaurants, it was a huge emotional moment and a great discovery for me. I was touched by how much they loved Lebanon, a love they were able to sustain in their hearts and daily lives although many of them have never been to the mother country. 

Meeting them was like meeting a part of myself that I never knew existed. They gave me a deeper understanding of what home means. 

Tell us about your country of origin and the state of press freedom there.

Since the murder of journalist and historian Samir Kassir in 2005 in a car bomb, the plight of Lebanese journalists has been worsening by the day. Many of the most vocal critics of the Syrian regime and its Lebanese protégés were killed. The last slain, Lokman Slim, was one of the country’s greatest intellectuals and human rights defenders, and a Hezbollah critic.  

Also, almost all media outlets are either owned by corrupt politicians or are being financed by banks, which have the major pillar propping up the corrupt culture, with one and the same agenda as the corrupt elite. Their reporting is mere propaganda and completely disconnected from reality. 

There remains a group of bright, honest, courageous journalists who continue to stand up to the truth and hold the perpetrators of the country’s woes to account. Most of them are friends of mine and I fear for their safety always, but also admire their courage, their ability to remain sane and alert in the face of some of the worst crises Lebanon and the world are experiencing. 

The latest round of crackdown on journalists targeted those calling for a transparent investigation of the Port of Beirut explosion, the biggest non-nuclear blast in the history of the world, and exposing the corrupt elite’s complacency in it. Harassment, court summons, imprisonment, death threats are some of the forms of coercion dozens of journalists, and average people who say the truth for that matter, are experiencing

What do you consider to be the most challenging aspect of your job? 

For the past two years, it has been the lack of in-person interaction with people and events, although this has just begun to get a bit better with the gradual lifting of Covid-related restrictions. 

Can you offer any advice to aspiring foreign correspondents from around the world who wish to work in the United States? 

There couldn’t be any better place in the world than the U.S. for a journalist to affiliate with people across many, many lines: race, religion, intellectual leanings. This is where people of the world, from all different walks of life, meet and create friendships that are sometimes impossible in their countries of origin because of politics. 

America can also be alienating. The remedy for that is to embrace and love this culture as one’s own. The reward, further down the line, will be a new human dimension that you acquire and which would tremendously enrich your humanity.  Today, 20 years later, I cannot think of America as any less than my second home. 

Also, learn how to cook. It’ll come in handy, especially if you are not willing to eat burgers, pizzas, or frozen foods every day.