Eric Pape

Eric Pape began his journalism career in 1993 in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where he evolved from a drug policy analyst into a journalist writing on the U.S. drug war in Latin America — at least when he wasn’t playing “rainforest basketball” alongside coca leaf growers.

He’s since worked as a journalist on five continents — largely for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, but also for the Los Angeles Times and Foreign Policy.

Eric has authored long-form narrative articles for the Los Angeles Times Sunday magazine on exiles, ethnic communities in American cities, and the impact of 9/11 on New York City. He has interviewed world-city mayors, heads of state, a former dictator or two, accused war criminals and a convicted terrorist on his release from prison for his involvement in an assassination in Washington, D.C. While living in Manhattan, Eric wrote on extremism, terrorism and the evolution of the city’s ethnic diversity.

He has contributed to The New York Times, The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, the LA Weekly, Los Angeles magazine, Mother Jones, Salon, Slate, and Vibe magazine. His writings on Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo for Spin magazine earned a special mention and inclusion in the annual “Best Music Writing” journalism anthologies.

His formative journalism experiences came in Southeast Asia, where he focused on investigative reporting on the end of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge movement, particularly brutal human rights abuses, and a violent political power struggle.

Newsweek magazine hired Eric to work out of its Paris bureau in 2003 as a special correspondent on Europe and northern Africa. He interviewed top politicians, artists and intellectuals, and reported on the ground in Madrid on the terrorist train bombings of 2004, from the streets of Parisian ghettos during fiery riots that rocked France in 2005, and on the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Eric has often appeared as a commentator/analyst on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Al-Jazeera, the BBC, and dozens of other broadcasters in the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America. He speaks Spanish and French, and is a co-author of Shake Girl, a graphic novel that was based on one of his articles.

He was a 2008 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. Previously, he earned a BA in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and an MA in International Journalism from City University in London. Eric grew up on the west side of Los Angeles, mostly in Venice Beach and Santa Monica.

Here in Hawaii, he is particularly interested in the global diversity on these islands, not to mention their elaborate links to the world beyond these shores.

He is available to chat about these and other things, and he’s especially eager to hear about the most interesting pick-up basketball game in town. Reach him at eric@civilbeat.com and follow him on Twitter at ericpape@twitter.com