Robb Montgomery

Robb at the U.S. Senate press room

Sometimes it is fun to be a journalist, after all.

Last week I helped lead a jam-packed U.S. study tour for foreign journalists and we needed a lighter moment after so much serious talk. The anxiety expressed by staffers in U.S. newsrooms about their future is palpable.

So, this photo shows me channeling my inner Jack Nicholson in the U.S. Senate press room - where senators hold press conferences for broadcasters. Only steps away from the floor of the upper house of Congress.

Pictured also is my good friend and colleague, Tarek Atia of the Media Development Program who hired me to coordinate key aspects of leading a group of 18 Egyptian journalists to meet top editors at USA Today, The Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News as well as tours of the Newseum, the National Press Building, Al Arabiya News Channel and a lecture at the Egyptian-American Cultural Association.

At the end of the week we built a simulated newsroom at the offices of IREX at 21 and K Streets. Our delegates held a news meeting, filed copy, took to the streets to make interviews, edited photos and dummied out a 16-page magazine on the white board.

Cover of 16-page magazine produced by visiting delegation of Egyptian journalists.

By Sunday afternoon we had most of the magazine pages built in Microsoft Publisher and I got to relive past glories as a Page One man by working up a magazine cover featuring a strong photo of a top Washington Post editor facing the challenges of the future.

Nice work by all the delegates who were the top-scoring students in the Complete Journalist Training program produced by MDP Cairo and the Supreme Press council. These journalists earned this trip with top grades from the nine-month course.

Nice to see these hard-working staffers get this chance for a trip abroad.

My English-language cover mockup which was later translated into Arabic glyphs and recomposed for right to left impact. No, the photo was not flopped! I chose a photo that could work for both right and left reading headline layouts.

The title of our magazine is “The Eyes.” and was developed by the team. Very cool.