Sam Coleman
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Sam Coleman, writer and editor, is an international journalist presently working in Asia, noted for investigative journalism (reportage from Iraq, the first articles on the rape drug GHB, the fate of Mollukkans in the Netherlands) having appeared in Stern Magazine, Vive, The Guardian and others as he's plied his management of magazines in Europe and Asia. His freelance work is represented by The Cover Story[1] in Amsterdam.
He’s also done extensive profiles including political and social figures like former President Bill Clinton [2]; broke the internationally renowned story of Attilla Ambrus, the Whiskey Robber in Hungary[3]; was one of the first journalists to interview Belgian Islamic political extremist Abu Ja Ja[4](an article that caused him to receive death threats from the same convicted murderer of Theo van Gogh); F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen[5]; Nobel Prize winning economist Muhammad Yunus and the former Philippine president Fidel Ramos among others.
CNN did a World Report item about Sam when we was covering his favorite story in Holland, the 101 Worst, Weirdest and most Wonderful things to do in the Netherlands as well as being profiled in the countries most prestigious publication, Vrij Nederland. He has appeared as a guest on more than 17 TV and radio talk shows a as guest as well as at political debates and public functions.
He’s lived ten years in Budapest Hungary (1990-2000) first starting as an archaeologist for the Derî Museum in Debrecen, conducting paleoethnobotanical research on Neolithic sites, teaching Native American history and anthropology at ELTE University and then moving onto media. He was the editor of Central Europe’s first independent foreign language paper, Budapest Week, as well as Group Editor for Budapest Style, Where Magazine Budapest, Business Hungary, NLG and others in the years following communism, as free and uncensored media sprung up in these countries. He was the editor of and Expatriates Handbook to Hungary as well as the Best of Budapest and pioneered a pirate radio program on Tilós Radio called "The Good, the Bad and the Unlistenable" whose guests included Kurt Loder of MTV, internet guru and columnist John Barlow, and Madonna.
In 2000, he came to the Netherlands, living seven years in Amsterdam where he became Editor-in-Chief of Expats Magazine and became a contributor and columnist to award winning publication Amsterdam Weekly (Lekker Bezig); Expatica; Roundabout (Ssay) and Sum Magazine (the Internationals). In 2004 he was called to take part of an ambitious editorial project by Heineken International: to completely format a new global content direction of all the corporate communications including all their magazines and online content be that the World of Heineken (the company's consumer brand magazine); Horizon (the management, internal magazine), the Heineken News Network (an intranet news service) and the company's corporate website, www.heinekeninternational.com [4]. As appointed Editor-in-Chief, he helped revitalize the content through interviews, feature writing and a total revamping of all titles in design and delivery. The experience also allowed him to travel to the company's many global operations including Spain, France, Greece, St. Martins and others as he covered stories and helped local partners align to the new corporate vision.
From September, 2006, he became the Managing Editor for Vision KL [5]in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where he and his lovely wife, DJ Stella Nutella [6], made a name for themselves in the media fields of music and publishing. He continued on that path, revamping the magazine and helping to create communication strategies for the Malaysia International Gourmet Festival (MIGF)[7], until 2008 when he decided to devote himself full-time to his current book project, the Last Latinist, a biography of poet Eric Johnson, by traveling through India and Nepal.