Alex Perry, based in England, has covered Africa and Asia for Newsweek and Time. His most recent book is The Rift: A New Africa Breaks Free.

“I got a call from one of my editors in 2003 or 2004, and he said something like, ‘You realize someone has died in the first line of every story you’ve filed for the last eight months?’ And my response was, ‘Of course. Isn’t that how we know it’s important?’ It took me a long time to work out that the importance of a story isn’t established only by death.”

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Show Notes:


@PerryAlexJ
alex-perry.com
Perry on Longform
[2:00] The Rift: A New Africa Breaks Free (Weidenfeld & Nicolson • 2015)
[3:00] The Hunt for Boko Haram (Newsweek Insights • 2014)
[4:00] "Inside the World of Louis Sarno, the Pygmy Chief from New Jersey" (Howard Swains • Newsweek • Apr 2015)
[4:00] "Behind the Scenes in Putin’s Court: The Private Habits of a Latter-Day Dictator" (Ben Judah • Newsweek • Jul 2014)
[27:20] "The Collateral Crisis in Somalia" (Time • Sep 2011)
[44:00] "Once Upon a Jihad" (Newsweek • Jan 2015)
[47:00] HHhH: A Novel (Laurent Binet • Picador • 2013)
[54:00] "The Cocaine Crisis: How the Drug Trade is Ruining West Africa" (Time • Oct 2012)
[54:00] Cocaine Highway: The Lines That Link Our Drug Habit to Terror (Newsweek Insights • 2014)
[56:00] The Quake: The Day Everest Shook Its Bones (Newsweek Insights • 2015)