2009 Grad Ansel Herz Reports From Haiti

By randyramirez in Blog on January 15, 2010 at 8:58 am

Ansel Herz, BJ ’09, boarded a plane to Haiti last September. Armed with a digital camera, a video camera, an audio recorder, and a MacBook, he planned to report from “where the silence is.”

“The American people are woefully misinformed on the historical and ongoing impact of U.S. foreign policy in Haiti,” he says on his website.

Little did he know, the country would dominate American media less than four months later. The multi-story house where Herz, 21, lives was one of the few in his neighborhood not to collapse. After the quakes, he immediately took to the streets with his camera. As a freelance journalist, Herz has been giving reports to major media outlets, including BBC, PBS, and CNN.

“I witnessed many acts of solidarity among Haitians, who are basically in the absence of any official relief effort,” Herz told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

Herz is staying in Port-au-Prince and continuing to document the quakes’ aftermath. With the help of his brother in Austin, he’s uploading video to his site, Mediahacker.org.

Here he is reporting on PBS Wednesday via Skype.