Video Bortin’s landmark in journalism saw Russia open up

UW–Madison alumna Meg Bortin went from being a history major to becoming a correspondent and editor at Reuters and the International Herald Tribune. In 1992, she helped found the first independent English language daily newspaper in Russia: The Moscow Times. “We saw this country that had been so closed and secretive open up and people starting to learn to be free,” she recalls. Bortin, based in Paris since the 1970s, has traveled across the globe and is writing two books. At the UW, she says, “I never thought that I would end up as a journalist, but fate smiled on me — and I lucked out.”