Sharif Abdel Kouddous.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW - Interview

When the people of Egypt rose up to overthrow the dictatorrship of Hosni Mubarak, the best coverage in the United States, far and away, was on Democracy Now. In large part, that was because of the amazing on-the-spot reporting by Sharif Abdel Kouddous. Kouddous has been with Democracy Now for eight years, rising from a volunteer to a senior producer. I caught up with him just a few days after he returned from Egypt. We did the interview on February 25 in Madison, Wisconsin, where he and Amy Goodman were covering the workers' protests.

Q: Tell me a little bit about your background.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous: Well, I grew up in Cairo until I was eighteen years old, and then I moved to college in the United States.

Q: Where did you go?

Kouddous: I went to Duke University. I thought I wanted to be a banker, and so I studied economics and philosophy. And I did become a banker for two years after college.

Q: Really?

Kouddous: Yeah, I went to New York, and I was an investment banker with Bank of America Securities in its leveraged buyout division.

Q: What was that like?

Kouddous: I hated it.

Q: Why?

Kouddous: I hated the culture, I hated the work. I very quickly realized that this wasn't what I wanted to do. So, after two years, I took some writing courses--I always loved to write--and I figured the only way I was going to get paid to write was in journalism. I really wasn't very involved politically with anything up until that point. Then I started reading about the second Palestinian Intifada, and I spoke to friends in activist and journalism circles. Then, somehow by complete luck, I ended up at Democracy Now.

Q: How did that happen? I'm sure there are a lot of people who want to work for Democracy Now and don't get that lucky.

Kouddous: I always say when we're hiring new people that I would have never hired myself because I had no background whatsoever. But this was during the run-up to the Iraq War. I heard that Democracy Now was looking for a news writer, and I started sending in headlines every day for a number of weeks. They ran a few of them. I would listen every day. I was so excited when Amy would read one of my headlines.

Q: So this is like writing jokes for Jay Leno?

Kouddous: Yeah, and then they asked me to come in.

This was right when the U.S. invasion of Iraq began. So, it was very hectic. It was two hours a day then, an extended program every day to cover the war, and I just fell into it. I was doing whatever I could to help out in the beginning--taking out the garbage and things like that, or answering the phone. And then more and more producing. I...