J@YS 10th anniversary debate: “Will journalism survive?”

On the occasion of its 10th anniversary, Journalists at Your Service (J@YS), “a help centre and information hub for journalists covering Brussels and the EU., on 22 June 2011 held a debate entitled “The way forward for journalism in Europe” at the International Press Centre in Brussels .

Taking part in the debate were Beth Costa, General Secretary of International Federation of Journalists, Christopher Berg, a reporter for the newly launched European Daily paper, Gareth Harding, Brussels programme director of the Missouri School of Journalism, and freelance journalist Rafael Porto-Carrero. J@YS President Maria Laura Franciosi moderated the discussion, which gathered an audience of about 25 guests.

Educating journalists about EU topics

Franciosi opened the debated by raising the importance of educating journalists about EU topics and institutions. “That is the way to increase and encourage accurate reporting of EU affairs,” she said.

“And that’s what J@YS stands for,” she added.

J@YS recently launched a newly designed website and published the latest edition of “Reporting Brussels” (pdf), a pocket book containing information sources and tools to help journalists write EU related stories.

New opportunities

Panel and audience members alike seemed to share an optimistic outlook on the future of journalism.

Beth Costa cautioned that that there would be no easy path to overcome the present difficulties, but was hopeful for the future: “New media are offering new possibilities, and journalists will have their place in the new world.”

Rafael Porto Carrero, a freelance journalist working for various news organisations in Brussels agreed with Costa: “There will be lots of opportunities for young generations who are digitally natives and multi-media savvy.”

J@YS President Maria Laura Franciosi moderated the debate

The future of European journalism

The discussion continued by addressing the future of European journalism with a presentation of a new European media initiative, the European Daily.

Christopher Berg, a reporter for the European Daily, introduced the paper as “the first daily newspaper aiming for European readers.”

On 15 June 2011, the European Daily published 40,000 copies of its first printed edition.

Berg explained that there are at least 15 to 20 million Europeans who travel all around Europe and who need to be informed on a daily basis about European news from a European perspective.

Gareth Harding, Brussels programme director for the Missouri School of Journalism, praised the paper’s “ambitious” mission. “With the expansion of the EU and the widespread usage of English and internet which helps to break down borders, there is definitely a market for European media outlets,” he said.

Harding pointed out however that primary loyalties of European citizens’ might still lie with national and local viewpoints, making it hard for European media to find a mass audience. “I hope the European Daily succeeds,” he said.

About 25 people took part in J@YS 10th anniversary debate. Despite the relatively small number of participants the discussion was lively and insightful

How to connect European citizens to EU issues?

According to Harding, European media have to overcome important challenges. Their primal task would be to “explain to their readers and viewers why events in other European countries matter to them and can affect their life.” He illustrated his point with the examples of the Greek Euro crisis and the recent E. Coli outbreak.

Ole Aabenhus, a Denmark journalist who was sitting in the audience, commented that rather than media efforts covering all 27 EU countries, “the public needs a platform that bridges a few European countries together.”
Naturally, it is easier to point out issues and make suggestion than to engage in real reform.

If it were so simple to create a new journalism model, there would not be any need for this type of debate.

“If you ask me if I have a solution, I would answer no,” said Costa. “There is not one solution and we are facing a big challenge. But we should see this as a big opportunity for the future,” she added.

The question we need to answer now is: Who will grab this opportunity and find the path to save journalism?

Text and photographs by Taein Park, EJC intern

Posted on July 12, 2011 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under analysis, blogging, events, work.

Challenges facing the accurate news coverage of minorities and immigrants

The media is powerful. Influential politicians are hungry for media attention because they know that the media can help them create a positive public image. But what about minority groups and immigrants?

To answer this question, The European Policy Centre (EPC) held a Policy Dialogue on 31 May 2011 at the International Press Centre in Brussels on the way media can affect the public understanding of minorities and immigrants.

More than 40 participants including journalists from Pakistan, Japan, South Korea and the United States attended the event.

Moderated by Yves Pascouau, EPC senior Policy analyst, the discussion gathered three panel members: Oliver Money-Kyrle, assistant general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, Alexandra Moe, Washington D.C Director of New America Media, and Italian journalist Raymon Dassi, who engaged in a lively two-hour discussion about the media coverage of minorities and immigrants.

(from left to right) Alexandra Moe, Oliver Money-Kyrle, Yves Pascouau, Raymon Dassi

Media Structure

Oliver Money-Kyrle, Assistant General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, pointed out to a couple of structural limitations in the media itself. The journalists who are currently covering the topic are dominantly white and middle class. As a result, he said, the newsroom inherently fails to represent minorities.

In addition, Money-Kyrle noted, even when a journalist produces a good article on immigrants or minorities, the headline sometimes distorts the original intention of the article due to “selling issues”.

The article and the headline are written by two different journalists, and most of times, Money-Kyrle said, the person in charge of the headline is under pressure to sensationalise the wording in order to catch the reader’s attention.

Moreover, as a consequence of the financial woes affecting news companies, journalists are being forced to work on several stories at the same time. They are forced to work as freelancers or with short-term contracts. Money-Kyrle suggested that these working conditions have an impact on the quality of journalism in the long run.

Choice of wording
The panel members and most of the journalists in the audience agreed to say that the media coverage of minorities and immigrants has improved in the last decades. In their view, journalists are more conscious today compared to 15-20 years ago in their choice of wording when describing minorities.

The panel also discussed at length the recent rising of right wing parties in Europe and the strong and powerful negative narrative of immigrants that has surfaced in politics and even in the media.

“Politics and journalism are two areas that are closely related and in Italy, the perception of immigrants and minorities in the media is increasingly faulty,” said Italian journalist Raymon Dassi, who is also a member of the Italian Intercultural Journalists Association.

Money-Kyrle indicated that right-wing politicians try to manipulate the image of immigrants and portray them as being a great threat to their own countries. “This narrative is very powerful,” he said.

Cautious optimism

The panel members were generally optimistic about the role of the media in covering minority and immigrant communities. Money-Kyrle suggested however that without government intervention and support, the current financial situation of the media does not guarantee a better news coverage of these groups in the future.

“Journalism is a public good, and governments have to intervene to create new market conditions so that migration issues are properly covered,” Money-Kyrle said. He suggested that the role of media is not to protect immigrants and minorities but to seek the truth. ”That is why the accurate coverage of these groups is of paramount importance,” he said.

Alexandra Moe, the Washington D.C director of New America Media, also mentioned the rising of ethnic media, which now reaches about 60 million adults on a daily basis in the United States. ”Immigrants and minorities are able to inject their voices to the society which they are part of,” she said.

Dassi predicted that the political participation of immigrants will change their image in the media: “Thanks to the internet and social participation, the immigrant’s consciousness is becoming substantial,” he said.
Overall, the concluding message of the discussion was that the media coverage of minorities and immigrants has improved but still has a long way to go.

Text and photographs by Taein Park, EJC intern

Posted on June 21, 2011 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under analysis, blogging, events, work.

Kamel Shiaa Prize winning article: Violence is spreading among the Iraqi children

The EJC and the Kamel Shiaa Foundation are pleased to announce that the first Kamel Shiaa Prize for Iraqi press freedom has been awarded to the Iraqi journalist Maryam Mohammed Jaafar for her article “Violence is spreading among the Iraqi children”.

The jury, composed of six international journalists, chose the winner out of 33 candidates. It was unanimously decided that the strength of Jaafar’s article rests on its promotion of children’ s rights and intercultural dialogue. Jaafar will have the opportunity to spend three months in Brussels to report on subjects throughout Europe in addition to receiving skills training to further improve her craft under the auspices of the EJC.

Violence is spreading among the Iraqi children, by Maryam Mohammed Jaafar

The car stopped suddenly in one of Baghdad’s streets. The driver came down to inspect the engine, asking the passengers to assist him to repair it. And after moments a large number of armed men, led by their leader, came waving their guns towards the passengers.

The leader of the group shouted in the face of the passengers “Are you Sunni or Shiaa?” Replied one of the passengers “Shiaa”, the leader shouted “Kill him” and another asked “Are you Shiaa or Sunni?” He replied ”A Sunni”. The leader said “This is a wrong answer ‘Kill him…”

This is not a scene from a film recording the killings in Iraq, but only a game played by the children in a suburb of Baghdad before their father calls them. “Come, O my children, it is the first day of Eid, let’s go to the city of fun fairs.” The dead regains standing position and holds guns and knives of plastic with the promise of resuming the game in the amusement park.

Mohammed and his brothers, just like any other Iraqi children, spend the money of Eid to buy plastic guns in order to play a game of murder and terrorism. That game has spread recently among children and became their favourite one.

In the northern Baghdad neighbourhood of Kadhimiya, the little Abbas, aged 11, is at a checkpoint near his home and always sits next to the guards trying to imitate them.

His mother says she feels uncomfortable about Abbas since he does not leave his plastic gun as if living in a military barracks. And when he plays with his brothers at home he pulls his plastic gun in their faces and start screaming like insurgents.

She adds that “when he gets some money he goes and buys a plastic pistol or rifle.” “I am afraid that one day he will carry a real weapon and pull it against others,” she adds.

Lots of fathers and mothers in Iraq are complaining that their children have become addicted to tough games and expressed their fears that events in Iraq will affect their future behaviour.

Some parents noticed that their children began to use violence with the younger siblings, and prefer isolation, withdrawal from community and fear the dark. In addition the use of bullying that enjoins others to listen to their words.

Children in Baghdad, 2009 (photo credit: jrseles, via Flickr, some rights reserved)

In a study published by the Iraqi Psychologists Association, the violence has affected millions of Iraqi children and became constituting a source of serious concern on future generations.

The study urged the international community to assist to establish psychiatric units for children and mental health programs.

Dr Muzaffar Jawad Ahmed, a researcher and teacher at the Centre for Psychological Studies and Educational Research in Baghdad, said that “the aggressive behaviour of children depends on two factors: one is the influential genetic, and the second is environmental. And this effect varies according to the social status of children. A child since the age of two tries to imitate others in their behaviour and starts with the family members, school, street, and so on.”

Dr Ahmed pointed out that “different degrees of violence in children and the reason is that every child has energy which may be discharged through sports, play, violence, aggressive behaviour and often against the younger.”

He adds “our society is encouraging violence. The father tells his son when he goes to school: if someone hits you, try to hit back, but he does not inform him on the proper methods to resort to the school administration.”

He adds that “the political systems of Iraq embarked on the militarization of society. A child every Thursday used to watch the flag raising ceremony and the launch of bullets for the flag, but he does not know the meaning of the flag, the national sentiment. He knows only what the rifle means.” 

He points out that “the violation of the child’s dignity, insulting physical and psychological contempt make him resort to violence when they cannot react to the insult, therefore, you see children use force with the younger.”

He adds “the violence faced by the majority of children is a result of immediate trauma. When an explosion occurs, or when one of their parents is killed, the child loses his consciousness, collapses, gets nervous or immediate hysteria at the same time.”

He points out that “the disorder begins to appear after the shock, ranging from two weeks to six months of the trauma in a form of sleep disturbance, depression, nightmares and self inward, will have greater effect than the immediate shock.”

He emphasises that the Centre of Psychological Research and Educational Studies has the tools and rehabilitation techniques known worldwide for the treatment of mental disorders and a laboratory in which people with mental disorders can be rehabilitated through the images of virtual reality. The treatment extends from one month to six months, according to the situation.

It is worth to note that the human in general can deal with all types of diseases without shame except two diseases, sexual dysfunction and mental illness. In addition to that a lot of parents do not accept the idea that their children may be living with disorder or self deviation.

Note: The original article by Maryam Mohammed Jaafar was submitted in Arabic. The translation was provided by the late Kamel Shiaa’s family, who was directly involved in the selection and translation of the articles in competition for the prize.

Posted on June 3, 2011 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under announcements, news, blogging, work.

Picnic 2007 Supplement

No time to breathe, no time to enjoy and too much stuff to do.

The Picnic event was very exciting and interesting. For those of you who where not in Amsterdam three weeks ago here is the picnic07 video archive with the highlights of this extraordinary event. Right after the picnic Arne
and I went to London for the “Future of Webapps - conference” which was an highlight on its own. After these two exciting events I needed a holiday.

So far so good. But there was a conference that I would want to attend namely the Virtual Worlds 2007 Conference and Expo in San Jose. Because: First, I have no clue where San Jose is. Second, it sounds like it would be a good place to stay for a few days more just to relax.

Anyway, here are the mp3s recordings of the last Virtual Worlds Conference in spring this year.

Posted on October 12, 2007 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under work.

The Revolution will be live

After Kathlyn has cleaned out all my mistakes in my blog-entries I am allowed to post some new stuff.  And it would not be me if it would not be a video. Everybody is talking about a revolution in the media and subsequently in society. Nobody seems to doubt it, even those who are old enough and do not need to adjust to this new wave of information that drips from our fingertips every moment. So what I have here is a little masterpiece. So enjoy it!

Posted on August 29, 2007 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under work.

Past Lectures - Europe and Islam

It feels like a lot of time has passed since I recorded my first lecture here in Maastricht.

The lecture fostered a debate that, to the surprise of the organisers, was a big success. So as a small gift to the EJC blog: Here it is, an old, rusty lecture recorded at the University of Maastricht earlier this year.

For all who really want to enter into the arena of debate, the Middle East Media Research Institute offers valuable Information about the region, background stories and actual video material.

Posted on June 27, 2007 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under work.

Jeremy Rifkin: The European Dream

Here is my masterpiece, a recorded lecture.
If you watch it, just imagine you are the one behind the camera, the one whose goal it is to record the happening in a straight way.
But, everything went wrong.
Initially, I wanted to publish an article, that will come tomorrow - I hope.

Posted on June 2, 2007 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under work.

Prerecorded Live Interview

Here you see the director of the European Journalism Centre in a video I recorded yesterday for a conference at Stanford University.

Wilfried Ruetten talks about the big buzzwords “Innovation Journalism” (duration 17 mins).

And I am very happy that the embedding of Google Videos works out so nicely, too!

Also, the lecture I promised in the previous post is now to 24 percent ready, according to my Avid Xpress editing software.

Posted on May 22, 2007 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under work.