Faces Profile : Clem Work

by Lucas Hamilton

Crammed into a bus packed to three times its capacity with goats, chickens, and people, winding through the steep mountains of Nepal in the middle of monsoon season, University of Montana journalism professor Clem Work feared for his life. At the end of the 12-hour ride above miles of rice patties and through various police checkpoints, Work arrived at the village that served as base camp for his three-day, 10-mile trek up 8,000 feet of Himalayan terrain.

But Work didn’t fly halfway around the world just to test his physical fitness. He traveled to Nepal in early August to visit his son, Brendan, who was working as an intern for the Himalayan Times. While in Kathmandu, Work spoke about the freedom of the press to journalists and students at the Nepali Press Institute. Work said that the news industry is booming in the newly democratic Nepal, where the monarchy dissolved in June.

“It was one great experience after another,” Work said of his trip, adding that Nepal was “fascinating, intense, very colorful and energetic.”

Also during the summer, Work completed production of a documentary about freedom of speech under the Montana Sedition Act of 1918, Jailed For Their Words: When Free Speech Died in Wartime America. The film is based on his book, Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West. Work produced the film with UM adjunct professor Gita Saedi.