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Therese Larsson Hultin, Swedish journalist and chief foreign analyst. |
Swedish Journalist and Chief Foreign Analyst Visits the University of Georgia
Swedish journalist Therese Larsson Hultin spent four days at the University of Georgia in early December learning about the U.S. media system and about politics and religion in the state of Georgia.
Larsson Hultin is the chief foreign analyst of Svenska Dagbladet, one of the top Swedish daily newspapers. During her career, she has been a business news anchor, an affairs host on Sveriges Radio, a presenter on the Sveriges Radio program P1‑Morgon, Berlin correspondent for Focus Magazine, and host of a weekly Sunday show on TV8.
Her program in Athens, organized by the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research, was part of the three‑month Transatlantic Media Network fellowship, coordinated by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
The Cox International Center is a unit of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and partnered with CSIS for the visit.
“As a Transatlantic Media Fellow, it feels like I won the journalistic lottery,” said Larsson Hultin. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to see half of this vast and beautiful country with all expenses paid for? The Center for Strategic International Studies has sent me on this journey, their objective being to get European journalists to see more of America than just New York, Los Angeles or Washington D.C., where most correspondents are based. And boy, have I seen different places. I’ve spent time with the Amish in north eastern Ohio, visited the Navajo Nation Capital in Arizona, seen the oil fields in North Dakota and enjoyed the amazing scenery along the northern Californian coast. And that’s just to mention four of the states I’ve been to in the past months.”
While at the University of Georgia, Larsson Hultin met with Dr. Loch Johnson, UGA Regents Professor, Department of International Affairs.
"We spent three trillion dollars in the last 13 years with two wars,” Johnson told the journalist. “Imagine that half of this money would have been spent on security issues. Do you know that even today only four percent of the containers that arrive in the country in the port of New York are checked?"
Dr. Charles Bullock, Richard B. Russell Professor of Political Science, told Larsson Hultin that demographics are working against the Republicans, who should revise their policy to attract more minorities. "At the same time," he said, "the current Republican discourse is appealing to the party’s base, and it is difficult to anticipate a dramatic change in the near future."
In the Grady College, the Swedish journalist visited Newsource, the student TV studio, and watched the production of a nightly newscast with Professors David Hazinski and Yvonne Cantrell Bickley. At the end of the newscast, she was invited to do a critique of the show that was broadcast live.
Larsson Hultin also had meetings with Dr. Charles Davis, Dean of the Grady College, Professor John Greenman, Carter Chair in Journalism, Dr. Itai Himelboim in the Mass Media Arts Department, and Dr. C. Ann Hollifield in the Journalism Department.
“People sometimes cannot understand how complex and complicated the religious landscape is in the United States,” Dr. in Theology William Mounts told the visitor. “Each denomination has its own variations, either geographically, historically or based on race and ethnicity.”
Drs. Lee Becker and Tudor Vlad, director and associate director of the Cox International Center, talked with Larsson Hultin about the Center's international projects.
During her three-month program, Therese Larsson Hultin visited 25 states.
“Personally though,” she said, “it is places like Athens, Georgia, that I have enjoyed the most. Places that I normally would not go to and where I have met some truly inspirational people. Because, let’s be honest, it is the people you meet on a journey that you bring home with you. Or at least the memory of them. To me that is what traveling – and journalism – is all about.”
After her departure from Athens, the Swedish journalist was to visit Savannah. The final destinations of her fellowship in the United States were Florida and Washington D.C.
