Perspective on journalism: Sandy Petrykowski
Courtesy: Sandy Petrykowski, used with permission.
Sandy Petrykowski is a writer, producer, reporter, editor and cameraperson currently working for the PBS program "Washington Week." She has worked with ABC News, CNN, Al Jazeera English, The Discovery Channel, the PBS NewsHour and NPR. While based in Egypt she oversaw many international productions as Bureau Chief for National Geographic. Petrykowski received an Emmy Award for her work with ABC News, and a National Headliner Award for the CNN Presents Film “Egypt: A Test Case for Democracy.”
April interviewed Petrykowski in 2018 about a variety of topics including:
Memorable stories (including the train fire)
Lessons she’s learned (including trust your gut, and the outcome of an ethical quandary)
The fixer and a lesson in ethics
““I thought ‘this is it, my career is over.’ So, I went to the car, stood there for a minute, thought about crying and thought ‘this is it, my boss is going to kill me.’” ”
In the following clip Petrykowski talks about a situation where keeping to her own ethical code meant parting ways with an employer.
““My colleague, and I actually got confirmation that the plane and crashed and we’re in the back of he airport somewhere in these empty hallways and this woman came up saying ‘I need to find out what happened. The plane hasn’t landed in my nephews are on the plane!’”
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Next, Petrykowski talks about an ethical situation she faced over telling the truth to the family member of someone who died in a plane crash.
Sandy Petrykowski working in Egypt. Courtesy: Sandy Petrykowski, used with permission.
““I’ve felt like the work that I do as a journalist hopefully teaches people something or changes their perception of something. And I hope that they learn something.” ”
Petrykowski spent many years based in Cairo and it taught her about being creative and respecting history, people and cultures. In the first part of this interview she talks about covering the discovery of the tomb of the ancient Egyptian Iuf-aa.
““I was doing radio and suddenly I just got a weird vibe like things were not going well. It was people protesting and the [Egyptian] government has people that are undercover, but it’s very clear that they are with the government, and they have these huge steel sticks...””
““I’ve never seen anything like that and I don’t want to again.””
Petrykowski has covered a variety of stories in her career, covering entertainment, business, science, and breaking news. While some stories may have been educational and uplifting, there were also those that were awkward, dangerous and tragic. In the following clips she discusses one of the most difficult stories she had to cover, a horrific train fire in 2002, and then a few that were memorable for other reasons.
““. . . [A] rancher would say ‘oh my God, it’s a wolf,’ and shoot them, when, in fact, the wolf probably just wanted to be his have his belly rubbed.””