Producer
Joyce Hackel is a producer at The World who aims to find the right voice for stories that will make you stop and listen.
Joyce Hackel spends much of her day tracking down the right person to tell the nuanced stories that help explain the world today. Joyce started out writing deadline copy from a DC sweatshop called States News Service in the mid-80s. After reporting one story too many about Congressional dysfunction (it was bad even then) , she ditched the Capitol Hill press pass and bought a one-way ticket to El Salvador. There she wrote for The Christian Science Monitor and filed freelance radio pieces from a closet lined with egg cartons. (She also met a British guy she’d eventually marry, but that’s another story…) Eventually she became a staff correspondent for Monitor Radio and was dispatched to Africa for four years. She filed from more than a dozen African countries, reporting on clan warfare in Somalia, genocide in Rwanda, and Nelson Mandela's landmark election. She won a few awards for her Africa radio pieces, and in 1996 headed to the University of Michigan as a journalism fellow. Since then, Joyce has worked as a Senior Editor at Living on Earth, and has edited WBUR’s Morning Edition. Some day she and her journalist hubby vow they'll get back on the road.
US officials say they hope Israel’s tensions with Iran don’t widen and deepen. At the same time, Israel’s military chief now says that his armed forces will respond to Iran’s weekend missile attack. Retired Adm. John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council, talks with host Marco Werman about the role the US will play as its ally Israel decides how to retaliate.
President Joe Biden warned Russia in 2021 that it would face “devastating” consequences if opposition leader Alexei Navalny were to die in prison. On Friday, the White House announced more than 500 new sanctions on Russia. The World’s host Marco Werman speaks with Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland about Washington’s other options.
When children contract COVID-19, they aren’t as likely to get severely ill as adults. But long COVID can have a severe impact on kids, according to a new study in the journal Pediatrics. Dr. Ziyad al-Aly, chief of research and development at the V.A. St. Louis Health Care System, talks with The World’s Carolyn Beeler about how and why kids’ immune systems struggle with the condition.
Telecommunications and internet connectivity were cut off again across Sudan as millions of people face an ongoing civil war. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder just returned from Darfur, a particularly troubling epicenter of the violence, and spoke to The World’s host Marco Werman about the latest conditions.
Israel has signaled that it’s planning to expand operations in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. About a million Palestinians are crammed into the city near the Egyptian border after repeatedly being told to move south, and now they say they have nowhere left to flee. The World’s host Carolyn Beeler speaks to Yousef Hammash, who works with the aid group the Norwegian Refugee Council, and moved there months ago with this family.