A time to teach
After an impressive career as a reporter and editor and seven terrifying years as a hostage of Middle East terrorists, Terry Anderson is adjusting to life as a visiting professor at Ohio University - and liking it.
Interview by Mary Alice Casey

On a typical morning, Terry Anderson leaves the home near Guysville he shares with his wife, Madeleine Bassil, and their 14-year-old daughter, Sulome, and heads west on Route 50 to Ohio University. As the day unfolds, Anderson - a visiting professor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism since July 1998 - splits his time among teaching, consulting with students and colleagues, and tending to phone calls, e-mail and other business in his brightly lit office.

It is a far different day than the 2,454 he spent as a captive of the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad in Southern Lebanon from 1985 to 1991.

A veteran newsman and native of Lorain, Ohio, Anderson held several domestic and overseas posts with The Associated Press before transferring to the Middle East in 1982 to cover the Lebanese civil war and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He became chief Middle East correspondent in 1983.

On Saturday, March 16, 1985, while dropping an AP photographer off at his Beirut apartment after their morning tennis game, Anderson was abducted by three armed gunmen and whisked away in a green Mercedes. In the almost seven years that followed, he was chained, beaten and emotionally tortured by fear, grief and hopelessness.

After his release in 1991, Anderson became a fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center in New York. He and Madeleine co-authored the national bestseller "Den of Lions," published in 1993 and dedicated to Sulome and Gabrielle, Anderson's daughter from his first marriage. He joined Columbia University as an associate professor in 1996.

Anderson now teaches foreign correspondence and contemporary issues courses for Scripps. This summer, he arranged for six students to spend five weeks studying at American University of Beirut and working at an English-language daily newspaper there. He was unable to accompany them because American University feared it could suffer political fallout because of the $100 million lawsuit he filed against the Iranian government for the role it played in his kidnapping.

In May, Anderson was interviewed by Ohio TodayEditor Mary Alice Casey. Here are some portions of their conversation.
 

Photos by Bill Graham

You've said you enjoy being in a place where ideas and discussions are important. After a year at Ohio University, how has the experience lived up to your expectations?

Wonderfully. I taught for three years at Columbia University, which is arguably - depending on whether you are from Missouri or not - the best graduate school of journalism in the country. I find our students here every bit as capable, bright and willing to work.

And we have an advantage here that they don't have at Columbia. We have Conan the Grammarian, (Journalism Professor) Dru Evarts. She teaches a course called Precision Language, which means when they come into my class, I don't have to teach them grammar. I teach them journalism.
 

How do you blend your experiences into class discussions?

I've been a journalist most of my adult life, and I teach reporting classes. There are certain things that I want to give them, the basics for reporting. I'm very passionate about the purposes and principles of journalism, about how important it is, how important it is to do it right, to be accurate and fair. It's all about the practice of journalism: How do you do this? Where do you start? Who do you talk to? What kind of stories can you do?

One thing I did, which turned out to be very funny, was have the students do a public records search on a prominent person. Several of them picked (President) Bob Glidden. I was just at the Gliddens' last night and I said, "Wait until you see what we found out about you!" He just laughed. Obviously, there's nothing to find out. But it was very funny because people at the university weren't used to it. Here come six or so students for Dr. Glidden's records. They were saying, "What? What?" But it's a matter of public record. So it was a nice exercise for them and for the school.
 

With students, do you find it difficult getting beyond your almost celebrity status?

No. I talk about my experiences - reporting overseas in Asia, Africa and the Middle East - because that's what I know. My experiences as a reporter work into my classes, but not as a hostage. What I try to do if I can is, sometime during the course - usually at the end - take an hour and allow them to ask anything they like. I know they're curious. They do ask questions. But that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to teach journalism.
 

What are you learning from students?
 
Lots. I'm learning that they're very demanding. They don't want war stories. They want to learn how to do journalism and they want to know why. You can't get away without explaining the reasons for what you've done, the principles behind it. That's what I want to teach anyway.

I'm learning - still learning - as a teacher. I think I'm getting better at it, but it's still a constant process.
 

Is this what you want to do for the rest of your life?

Yeah. I started teaching part time at Columbia and they kept asking me to do more. I ended up teaching full time. I found after a couple of years that, yeah, this is what I want to do.
 

How is your family adjusting to life in southeastern Ohio?

My wife loves it. She just took a course in French here last quarter. My daughter is very happy at Athens Middle School. She's into lots of activities: dance, voice, theater. We live about 12 miles out of town, near Guysville, with two horses, two dogs and a cat. We have 10 acres and an option on another 10. We're settling in.
 

You were pretty visible last spring when three American servicemen were briefly held captive by Serb forces. What was that like?

Yeah, I was the flavor of the week for a while. We did seven satellite feeds in a week. I was on "Larry King Live" three times and did a whole bunch of radio feeds.
 

Tell me about your lawsuit against Iran. What is that all about?

It's not about the money. Iranians are still denying any part in the kidnapping. They're turning back toward the West, and that's OK. But in order to do that, they have to acknowledge their responsibility for what they did during the '80s. This is one way of telling them that. I would like for them to accept responsibility, then we'll see. Sooner or later the U.S. and Iran are going to settle their claims and counter claims with each other and I'd kind of like to be at the table.

And it's not only me. There are three other hostages who have already won judgments. Congress passed the law allowing private citizens to sue foreign countries for terrorist acts not to make victims rich, but to make terrorism expensive.

 
Are there any other thoughts you'd like to share with alumni and friends of Ohio University?
 
They have a very good school here. Scripps is a very fine school, one of the nation's top five undergraduate journalism schools. We're building our graduate program, and I think it's going well.

We send half a dozen students overseas every year. That's an extraordinary opportunity. And I'm hoping to add to that. If the Beirut program comes off, that will be another half dozen students every year who will go overseas.

I think I'm bringing something to Scripps in the connections I can make as well as the teaching that I can do.