Samatar was a regular fixture in the popular media. In 1992, as part of the Social Science Research Council team's reassessment of the "Teaching and Study of the Humanities in Africa," he went to Somalia as a consultant and interpreter for the ABC news program Nightline with the American journalist Ted Koppel. Beginning in 1983, Samatar appeared on BBC shows for interviews regarding Northeast Africa, and discussed Somalia on NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN International, as well as PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio and television news programs. Samatar has been cited in Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
