Congressional Office of International Leadership

Journalists from Sweden, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Spain, Slovenia, and Serbia visited the Alabama Public Radio newsroom on Friday. The delegation was part of a U.S. State Department initiative known as the International Visitor Leadership Program.

Back in February, the US State Department asked me to speak to a foreign delegation about APR’s coverage of human trafficking. One member of that group was an investigative reporter from Ukraine. When I was done, we were all smiling and taking pictures and shaking hands, and this journalist came up and pressed a book into my hands. It was poetry written by Ukrainians about the war with Russia. The stories of pain and loss hammered home for me the fact that I don't know firsthand what it's like in Ukraine, but one part time resident of Huntsville, does.