MPR’s Algeo awarded Pew Fellowship, looks forward to challenges in Malawi

BANGOR – His mother tells her friends that he’s going to Maui. But Matthew Algeo, a producer and reporter for Maine Public Radio, is really going to Malawi, a former British colony in southeast Africa.

Algeo, 36, will spend five weeks in the tiny African nation this fall on a Pew Fellowship in International Journalism. He will cover the growing tension between Christians and Muslims there, producing reports for National Public Radio and a documentary for MPR.

“What’s going on in Malawi, especially in light of the war on terrorism, can tell us a lot about what might happen here in the United States,” said Algeo in a telephone interview last week. “In Malawi, I can see how Muslims and Christians live together in a democracy. Christians in Malawi are coping with a growing Muslim minority that has grown more assertive [in secular issues]. That is a situation the U.S. could be facing as the Muslim population grows here.”

Algeo, who lives in Portland, covered the conflict in Northern Ireland before joining MPR in 1998. He said that he has no major concerns for his safety while in Malawi because the nation is considered to be stable. The reporter also will spend seven weeks at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., before heading to Africa. He will spend three more weeks there after his trip to Malawi before he returns home in December.

Malawi is a constitutional democracy with an elected president, explained Algeo. About 70 percent of the population is Christian and 25 percent is Muslim. Currently, the Muslim population is growing far more rapidly than the Christian population is. President Bakili Muluzi, now in his second term, is a Muslim, and political parties tend to be based on religion, he said.

“Christians are feeling like the country is being Islamicized and is getting too powerful and too influential,” said Algeo. “Mosques are being built at a fairly fast rate, and there have been questions about the president paying for them with government funds. … One of things the president did was pass a law that required all beef be prepared according to Islamic tradition. That upset Christians, who felt that Islam was being forced upon them.”

There have been instances of violence in the past year, said Algeo. Mosques have been attacked by Christian mobs and Christian missionaries have been driven out of predominately Muslim areas. Malawi also is facing a food crisis in addition to a recent outbreak of bubonic plague.

Algeo said that he’s always been interested in international issues and felt that the Pew Fellowship would be a good opportunity for him because it requires a relatively short time commitment and allows reporters to return to their jobs. He observed that people in Maine seem more attuned to international affairs than those in the center of the country because of the long border it shares with Canada.

Algeo is one of eight U.S. journalists selected for the fellowship. The other journalists are: Arian Eunjung Cha of the Washington Post who will focus on Russia; Travis Fox, a video journalist with the Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive, who will focus on Romania; Rachel Konrad of CNET News.com, who will focus on Ecuador; Sara Olkon of the Miami Herald, who will focus on India; Otto Pohl, a New York-based freelance writer, who will focus on Germany; Tiare Caryn Rath of the Daily Star-International Herald Tribune who will focus on the Congo and Robert Schmitz of Minnesota Public Radio, who will focus on China.

Reporting topics for this year’s fellows include the environment, international health and medical news, immigration and refugees, technology and economic development, cultural and religious clashes and post-conflict resolution.

The Pew Fellowship’s mission is to strengthen the U.S. public’s understanding of key international topics by providing early- and mid-career U.S. journalists with access to leading international experts located in the United States and providing opportunities to do reporting projects overseas.