Sarah McGowan, Founding Features and Photo Editor, The Women's International Perspective | USA

Elle Kaiser: What led you to your career?

SM: So far, at age 35, I've had three careers and for each of them, my innate interests and life experiences provided a path, even if at times I didn't know that I was on one.

Always concerned with health and wellbeing, I started in the natural food industry. Eventually that led to an interest in community wellbeing, so I pursued an undergraduate degree in psychology at UC Santa Cruz, focusing my studies on social psychology and children at-risk. During the course of my major studies, I discovered Psychology and Law, which tapped into my passion for social justice. From there I ended up working with children at-risk in various capacities for the next seven years, first in the Student Support Services department at the Santa Cruz County Office of Education and then as the Program Director for the juvenile diversion program, San Diego Teen Court – where I educated 6,000 teens on social justice and how to become agents for social change. That work was extremely demanding and high impact, but one of my favorite aspects of the job was watching how quickly teens picked up the concepts of social justice and began applying them in their lives. I most enjoyed working with the large immigrant communities in mid-city San Diego, which is home to the U.S.' largest Iraqi and Sudanese populations. But after seven years, I felt like I was ready for a new direction and challenge. Wanting to do something more creative and pursue my love of writing, I signed on to help my good friend Katharine Daniels create The Women's International Perspective. Together we took her great idea and created an incredible online publication written by women from around the world.

The currents of social justice and creativity seem to be always present in whatever work I do, largely because that's how I stay engaged in my "work life". Without those elements in my various careers, I imagine that I'd feel pretty unfulfilled and stifled.

EK: What types of media do you use in your work?

SM: I'm a photographer, so imagery is really important to me in my ability to convey a story or meaning. But I'm also very interested in podcasts, which comes from my love of public radio, particularly This American Life. There's something really intimate about listing to the vignettes on a well-produced radio show or podcast – it requires a level of attention and imagination that you don't get with just reading or watching video.

But I do hope to eventually explore using video because I think there's an incredible power to it – being able to see someone's facial expressions, hear their voice and in the process catch all the subtle nuances that are missed by still photography or text. Sometimes that tool over all others really has the power to motivate people to action.

EK: As an editor, writer and photographer how do you think photos and words each tell the same story differently?

SM: Both images and words are incredibly compelling. I think that to some degree, beauty or meaning really is in the eye of the beholder. It's such a subjective experience to look at a photograph or even to read a book – everyone has his/her own unique experience with it. But what strikes me about the power of photography is that it allows the viewer to interpret meaning, look for answers and perhaps come to conclusions that s/he wouldn't otherwise arrive at if just reading text.

But the power of the written word cannot be underestimated – it can be extremely elegant and moving. I love the way I feel when I'm finishing a really good, engrossing book. I don't want to put it down and say goodbye to the story. I think the biggest difference is that anyone can appreciate or engage with an image. If you're illiterate, a book holds little immediate promise, but with a picture, we find an instantaneous way to connect.

EK: How has online journalism played a role in your career?

SM: It's obviously been hugely significant for me. Before my involvement in The WIP, I had never formally published my photography or writing before, so the medium of online journalism has really become a powerful opportunity for me to share my work with others. But it's also a place where I've had the opportunity to learn and share perspectives. By participating in a global publication like The WIP, I feel as thought I've earned another degree. The amount of knowledge that I've digested, analyzed and disseminated is enormous and it's given me a much better grasp of what's happening on a ground level around the world than any class ever could. It's also allowed me to connect with amazing women all over the world, from places like Zimbabwe and Burma – women that I wouldn't have ever had the opportunity to meet and share ideas with otherwise. I consider it a great blessing and an incredible source of inspiration.

EK: How do you think the Internet has changed the field of international journalism?

SM: It has changed the game completely. It has affected the quality of news we receive and the depth of stories that really educate and inspire. The Internet news reader is a totally different demographic than the traditional print news reader – s/he has a shorter attention span, which means that the news story has to be tailored to a new paradigm that I don't think always serves the greater good of information sharing. I really relish tucking into a good feature magazine article, but reading long format online is admittedly difficult. So it's taken the format of news and reduced it to news bites, which are lacking in the contextual analysis that we need to understand why and how something is happening in another country and are often sensational in their attempt to get as many eyeballs or clicks as possible. So in the competition to rise to the top of an ever-growing pool of online news providers, quality international journalism has paid an enormous price.

I think the biggest change that we've seen is the death of investigative journalism. By democratizing the news, the downside has been that journalists have had to do more with less, which in investigative journalism just isn't viable.

EK: What do you think is the biggest advantage of using the Internet as a news source?

SM: I think there are two major advantages: the speed with which we can now disseminate information and the democratization of media. Social media sites like Twitter have provided platforms for real-time engagement that is just completely unprecedented. The coverage that we saw last summer during Iran's 2009 election protests was amazing and truly a unique moment in time since the regime there had cracked down so completely on coverage within the country. Luckily for the rest of the world, the regime didn't know what to do with the Twitter phenomenon and we were fortunate to see what was really happening before they blocked it.

The filter between what's happening and how it's conveyed to the rest of the world has largely been democratized, which can be both fantastic and at times dubious at best in terms of quality. Where we once relied on seasoned, trained journalists to provide the story, we're now able to get it from "average" people on the street – which can often be far more authentic than a foreign correspondent going into another country with his/her own biases, or maybe s/he doesn't even speak the language. The advantage and disadvantage of this model is obvious, but I think that as more people become empowered to use the Internet as a way to get information and then truly connect on a global scale, we'll start to see a level of engagement and problem-solving that has previously eluded us.

Ideally the news story won't just exist on the pages of a newspaper, but serve as a vehicle for a middle-aged woman in the U.S. to suddenly connect in a visceral way with the challenges facing an HIV-positive sex-worker who has been trafficked to Thailand. The immediacy of the Internet and the dynamic nature of video and podcasts offer a level of participation that is no longer as passive and removed as reading a printed publication. My hope is that this level of connectivity empowers more people to take this new information and do something with it that betters humanity and the planet.

EK: Have you experienced any gender bias(es) in your career?

SM: I've been lucky and insulated in a way because at The WIP, I mainly deal with other women. But there's been a pervasive misconception about our publication that does really speak to incredible gender bias, and that is that anyone who hears The Women's International Perspective, automatically assumes that we must be by women, about women and only for women. It completely negates that women have anything important to say to the other half of the world, or that their perspectives are critical in the search for global solutions, which of course they are. This clearly is an incredible injustice and a terrible missed opportunity. But at this point to keep talking about gender bias, I feel like, "Really? We're still talking about this?"

In the past year, it's become strikingly apparent to all of us at The WIP (and the women that we work with) that to continue to call injustices or gaps in equality "women's issues" only serves to marginalize them. We should be calling them societal issues or human rights issues – this is the only way that we'll ever see any real movement towards equality or a shift in the current power paradigm. To me, when American women are paid as little as 69¢ for every dollar earned by a man for commensurate work, that's not a gender issue, that's an issue with the way our society has placed value on the efforts of half the country's population. And does that serve the country's economy or GDP or the wellbeing of families? No. The paradigm of "us" and "them" needs to be laid to rest if ever we're to see true shift, because what benefits women, benefits everyone.

EK: How have international experiences impacted your career?

SM: I feel like I have international experiences everyday in my correspondence with our writers and in the editing of their stories. These experiences have completely defined my career in media, so in some ways, I really don't know any different. But I've also traveled a fair bit and have always felt that it's really important for Americans in particular to get out and see the world to truly understand where the convenience of our lives and standard of living comes from. It's also crucial to have a greater appreciation for the incredible diversity and beauty of this planet. Just as one example, if more people visited the Amazon and could see first-hand the ecological destruction wrought by multinational oil companies, I think we'd see a lot more ecological justice than we do now. These kinds of experiences build bridges of understanding.

More specifically in my career, having a greater understanding of global history and current events allows me to put things into proper context – and this makes me a much more savvy and critical thinker. Mainstream media is so manipulated by economic and political interests that you have to have your own understanding and the ability to challenge some of the misinformation that inevitably is a part of globalization, even in media. Without that, we're doomed to unwittingly perpetuate suffering and injustice if we just blindly accept everything we're told.

EK: What has been the biggest challenge you've encountered working with women from 33 different countries?

SM: The biggest challenge has been the difference in journalistic standards and practices. We fact-check all of our articles, and when we first got started, we were really shocked at how many women seemed to be intentionally plagiarizing their work. Entire paragraphs would be cut and pasted from other articles without proper attribution and we were horrified at the thought that this was considered journalism. But by trusting our writers and by educating them as to what was acceptable practice in the U.S. and mainstream media, we learned that they were simply doing what everyone else in their field in their respective countries was doing.

Some women did not know how to properly construct a convincing argument, or how to frame a story around a core thesis. So I've spent a lot of time educating some of our writers, especially those from "developing" countries, on how to become viable and competitive in the mainstream media marketplace. I think I've been just as much an educator as an editor for a great number of the women that I've worked with.

EK: What has been your most rewarding experience working at The WIP?

SM: There have been so, so many, that it's really hard to say. But overall, I think the biggest reward that I've experienced is the quality of relationships that I've developed with all the incredible women and men that I've had the great fortune to work with – from my colleagues, to our writers, to all the inspiring people who are doing important work around the world for the countless organizations that we've connected and partnered with. What I hold special in my heart are those human connections, because that's why we created The WIP – to share personal perspectives that would enlighten the world, provide a platform for women's voices that they might empower others and to offer a place where women and men could come together in solution-based dialog. Pretty lofty ideals, but we have achieved those goals, and that's an amazing gift.

EK: What do you think are the differences in journalism in other countries and the United States?

SM: Again, I think it goes back to standards and the level of education that these women have had the opportunity to pursue. I've worked with some women who could barely write in English, whose arguments were all over the place, or who would simply write down a laundry list of data. In some countries, that's totally acceptable, but for what we're trying to do, we've really had to find those diamonds in the rough and be patient enough to help our writers develop their ideas. We've had other publications come to us and want to know how we found such incredible voices in places like Kashmir or Macedonia –expecting that the writers could produce a quality article in English from the get-go. Our answer has been that if you want a powerful voice from a part of the world that has been under-reported, you had better be ready to invest in their development. Those voices really shine because we've taken the time to help bring these women along, and when needed, decipher meaning from sometimes very rudimentary language. But that process of discovery is a very exciting two-way street. Some of the most invigorating moments of my media career have resulted from helping a writer overcome her limitation with English to publish an incredibly important story.

EK: What has being an international journalist taught you about journalism in the United States?

SM: I think the biggest thing that I've learned is just how myopic the U.S. is in terms of its engagement with the outside world and coverage of foreign events. We have a reputation for being isolationist for a reason, and it shows glaringly in our own journalism. Given this worldview, it's easy to understand why our journalism is often so lacking in context and depth, because if you don't know the historical progression of a country's foreign policy or development, or if you don't explore the nuances of international diplomacy, the coverage becomes reductive.

That isn't to say that there aren't some unbelievably gifted journalists in the U.S. – there are. In fact, there are many – and probably an incredible number that are sadly unemployed at this time. But given the fact that the vast majority of this country really doesn't care to know what's happening in the rest of the world, the market is lamentably driven by a "need-to-know" mentality. Unfortunately, it took a tragic event like 9/11 to make many Americans more aware of the outside world – but again, a lot of mainstream media is so sensationalistic that it's made it very easy for the uninformed to reduce the wars that were engaged in (as just one example) to a case of the U.S. against all the "evil" forces in the world. Because the truth of the matter is, that mentality is way easier to maintain than dealing with the cognitive dissonance of knowing that our government has been sowing the seeds of unrest in many places worldwide for a long time now and we've done nothing to stop them.

EK: Where do you get your news? (What websites do you visit, which broadcasts do you watch, ect.)

SM: I primarily use The WIP's news headlines feed and the Byline Portal for international coverage. Our news editor, Aralena Malone-Leroy, is based in France and does an amazing job of curating those features for international value and context. I've been exposed to a lot of great regional sources that I would have had to really dig to find – publications like The Hindu, CommonDreams, Radio Free Europe, Khaleej Times, The East African, Asia Times, Lebanon's Daily Star, Turkey's Today's Zaman and Pambazuka.

I also use Twitter a lot because it allows me to aggregate news sources (at least those that are using that platform) into a "List". I follow domestic sources like the New York Times, The Nation, PBS News Hour, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Democracy Now!, The Economist, Time Magazine, Yes! and NPR. I follow international sources like Al Jazeera, Global Voices (which is actually a blog, but an incredible collection of on-the-ground voices), The Guardian, Spiegel and the BBC. I listen to my local NPR station, KCRW – which is basically playing in the background all day while I work, so I catch a lot of political commentary. I'm also completely addicted to This American Life on Chicago Public Radio.

EK: How do you balance your personal life with your career?

SM: That's always a constant process for me, but I think it's important to realize that career is simply a part of life. They two should not be in opposition or competition with one another, so it's always crucial to be assessing whether there's reasonable balance between the work I do and the things I pursue in my personal life.

Work is just a small fraction of a larger life equation, so when the balance is off, I notice it immediately. I'm not happy if all my time is spent in front of the computer. I actively prioritize spending time with my friends and loved ones, going to dance class, taking walks, making good food and enjoying free, unfettered time. When I make that balance work, I'm happier, healthier and more productive. Part of that happiness factor means choosing a line of work that I believe in and that feeds me intellectually, spiritually and emotionally.

There's a regrettable ethos in this country that conspires to keep people working to participate in our consumer society, which is sad because we are rarely fed in a substantive way (intellectually, spiritually or emotionally) by our consumerism. Unfortunately this has translated into more people feeling like their intrinsic value depends on how much they work. But I refuse to buy into that notion and derive my own value and sense of self-worth from how well I take care of myself, the people I love and my community. I know not everyone in the world is as fortunate, but I think it's incumbent upon those of us that have those freedoms to choose, that we choose to be happy and healthy. That way we're able to help others and build stronger communities to support those who aren't as free.

EK: What is one piece of advice you have for women hoping to work in the communications field internationally?

SM: Find an internship in the field and learn everything you can. It will certainly help you gain real-world experience and build your resume, if not result in a job offer. And don't give up. Though a hundred doors may close in your face, it only takes one that opens to set you on your path toward self-discovery.

Interviewee: Sarah McGowan

Sarah McGowan is the founding Features & Photo Editor at The Women's International Perspective, where she has helped create the publication since its inception. She has educated thousands of teens in the San Diego urban area about social justice and how to become advocates for change and founded P.A.I.N.T. (Public Art Involving Neighborhood Teens), a mural program that pairs vandalism convicted youth with adult mentors in an effort to transform destructive behaviors into pro-social expression.

An avid traveler, photographer and writer, her work reveals a desire to empower the human voice, recognize the complexities of the human spirit and her dreams for a healthier global existence. She owns a boutique creative services company in Los Angeles (www.macandcob.com) with her partner and is a member of her local Timebank.

Interviewer: Elle Kaiser

Proud to be a Hawkeye, Elle Kaiser is a sophomore in the School of Journalism at the University of Iowa. Along with a double major in Journalism and Mass Communication and Ethics and Public Policy, Kaiser is working towards obtaining a Certificate in Entrepreneurial Management through the School of Business. Kaiser is from Mason City, Iowa and hopes to attend law school after graduating in 2012. Kaiser is an active member on the university campus participating in student organizations such as Students to Assist Recruitment (STAR) and is currently training to become an Orientation Advisor for the summer of 2010. Along with attending class and volunteering Kaiser works in the Office of the Vice President for Research and acted as volunteer intern for the Johnson County Attorney's Office in the fall of 2009. Next year, Kaiser is interning with Victoria's Secret to pursue an interest in fashion media and advertising. Kaiser speaks Spanish and believes studying international communications sheds light on important culture differences that may otherwise go unnoticed. She recently traveled to Mexico and is taking this women in media class to learn more about gender differences within the media.