#5098: Haitian Times (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haitian Times <publisher@flashcom.net>


News For An International Community

By Elizabeth Angell
Brill's Content

When Garry Pierre-Pierre was hired as a reporter by the New York Times in
1993, he told his editors that Haiti was the one topic he didn't want to
cover. "I didn't want to be 'the Haitian reporter'" says Pierre-Pierre, who
left Haiti when he was eight years old. Today, he's the publisher, editor in
chief, and sometime office-cleaning crew for The Haitian Times, the
English-language weekly he left the new York Times last year to found.
"People her need to know what's happening in Haiti," says Pierre-Pierre. He
publishes the newspaper on a shoe string budget- he receives no salary - out
of a storefront office in Brooklyn, New York. (His wife, a nurse, provides
the family with a steady income.)  The Haitian Times covers news and culture
in Haiti and the U.S. and has a circulation of 15,000, mostly in New York.
The paper bears the stamp of Pierre-Pierre's insistence that the Haitian
diaspora deserves a newspaper up to the toughest standards of thoroughness
and impartiality. Pierre-Pierre manages a staff of about 15, and runs
bureaus in Port-au-Prince and Miami. "Despite the chaos and despite the
madness that is Haiti, there are some things that are happening there that
are worth mentioning," he says. There are some people who are working very
hard to make a difference."



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