‘Today’ Co-Host Hopes to Shed Light on Sudan

By BRIAN STELTER- NYT

Madeleine Haeringer/NBCAnn Curry, a co-host of “Today,” reported in Sudan earlier this month on what she said “appears to be ethnic cleansing.”

 

On Valentine’s Day, an hour before she would have been sitting down to dinner with her husband, Ann Curry wrote on Facebook, “Going on assignment but unable to tell you where because of the security risk.”
She added, “Let it be worth it.”
Ms. Curry was away from the “Today” show for the next six days. When she returned, she made no mention of her absence. But this week she will show why it was worth it to her.
Ms. Curry was in Sudan, interviewing civilians who have been victimized by a government bombing campaign in the Nuba Mountains. What is taking place there, she said in an interview by phone last week, “appears to be ethnic cleansing.”

Ms. Curry’s reports will be shown on “Today” and on NBC’s prime-time newsmagazine “Rock Center With Brian Williams” on Wednesday, shedding light on a part of the world that rarely receives attention on American television.
She said she felt that to be live on “Today” from the region would be unnecessarily risky, so her reports were taped and brought back to the United States, where they were edited last week.
“I want these people to be seen and heard,” Ms. Curry said. An NBC spokeswoman said it was her sixth time in the region. Sneaking into the country, Ms. Curry said, was a tough decision, but the right one because “our job as journalists is to find out what’s going on, document what’s going on and not let it happen in silence.”
Nicholas Kristof, an opinion columnist for The New York Times, has reported from the region this month under similar conditions. In a column last week, he described being driven in from South Sudan in a vehicle “covered with mud to make it less visible to bombers.”