11
2011
Cultivating New voices, Approaches, and Audiences for national -- and international -- reporting
in an era of global interconnectedness and shrinking news budgets
Monday, July 11, 5:00 pm
Austin East Classroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School (Map)
Free and Open to the Public; RSVP
required via the form below
This event will be webcast live at 5:00 pm ET and archived on our site shortly after.
Webcast URL: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/webcast
Reception to follow
The Berkman Center will host a conversation about the challenges of
reporting international stories to US and Global audiences. In an age
of shrinking news budgets, American newspapers and broadcasters are
producing less original reporting of international stories. And while
gripping events like the Arab Spring capture the attention of the
public, many important international stories fail to garner widespread
attention. The challenges for international reporting are both ones of
supply (who reports the news from around the world?) and demand (who
pays attention?).
This conversation was inspired by Berkman Fellow Persephone
Miel, whose work focused on how compelling narrative and context for
international stories could make unfamiliar international news more
accessible to American and global audiences. Her efforts to support and
promote talented local, non-US journalists whose work has the potential
for global impact, but who need to overcome significant obstacles to
succeed, are continued through a fellowship established in her honor by
the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, in partnership with Internews.
Journalists Fatima Tlisova (Voice of America) and Pulitzer Prize winner
Dele Olojede will join Ethan Zuckerman (Berkman Center/Global Voices),
Colin Maclay (Berkman Center), Ivan Sigal (Global Voices), Jon Sawyer (Pulitzer Center) and the Miel
family for a discussion and reflection on these questions, and on
Persephone's work and the journalistic values she championed.
Fatima Tlisova is an investigative journalist, researcher and expert on
the North Caucasus region of Russia. She has written extensively on
Circassian nationalism, the role of Islam in regional affairs, human
rights abuses during the military operations in the North Caucasus,
torture, disappearances and corruption. She was Editor in Chief of the
Regnum News Agency, worked as a special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta,
and reported for RFE/RL and for the Associated Press.
Dele Olojede is the publisher of NEXT, NextOnSunday and 234NEXT.com, which provide
news and informed opinion primarily for a Nigerian audience to further
the common good. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a former foreign
editor at New York Newsday, he is chairman of the Global Network
Initiative International Advisory Council and a member of the governing
board of the Aspen Institute's Africa Leadership Initiative.
Ethan Zuckerman served a fellow of the Berkman Center from 2003 through
2009. Since 2009, he's been a senior researcher at the center, working
on projects that focus on the impact of technology and media on the
developing world and on quantitative analysis of media. With Hal
Roberts, he is working on comparative studies of tools for censorship
circumvention, techniques for blocking-resistant publishing for human
rights sites and on the Media Cloud framework for quantitative study of
digital media.
Colin M. Maclay is the Managing Director of the Berkman Center, where he is privileged to work in diverse capacities with its faculty, staff,
fellows and extended community to realize its ambitious goals. His
broad aim is to effectively and appropriately integrate information and
communication technologies (ICTs) with social and economic development,
focusing on the changes Internet technologies foster in society, policy
and institutions.
Ivan Sigal is the Executive Director of Global Voices
(http://globalvoicesonline.org), a non-profit online global citizens’
media initiative. Previously, as a Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute
of Peace, Ivan Sigal focused on how increased media and information
access and participation using new technologies affect conflict-prone
areas. He spent over ten years working in media development in the
former Soviet Union and Asia, supporting and training journalists and
working on media co-productions, and also working as a photographer.
During that time Sigal worked for Internews Network, as Regional
Director for Asia, Central Asia, and Afghanistan.
Jon Sawyer is founding director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis
Reporting, a non-profit organization that funds independent reporting
with the intent of raising the standard of media coverage and engaging
the broadest possible public in global affairs. In its first five years
the Center has funded nearly 200 international reporting projects,
partnering with major newspapers, magazines, broadcast and online
outlets as well as universities and high schools across the country.
Jon was previously the Washington bureau chief for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
for which he reported from five dozen countries. He was selected three
years in a row for the National Press Club's award for best foreign
reporting.
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Last updated September 14, 2011