My journalism career started when I graduated from college. I worked for newspapers in Virginia, Connecticut and Maine, starting at small weekly papers and working my way to dailies.

After nine years in newspapers, I went to graduate school with the idea to become a foreign correspondent, but teaching to pay my way through graduate school at Michigan State University University changed my mind. I got a PhD and made career teaching journalism and international studies at Bowling Green State University. I directed a program that brought American, Tunisian and Algerian students and their professors together to study environmental journalism. I retired in 2019.

In 2014, 2016 and 2019 I traveled to the West Bank and East Jerusalem to take part in workshops and seminars about the issues and challenges facing Palestinians. My parents were fierce advocates for justice for Palestinians and objected to US policy in the Middle East.