| SIS International Communication Conference focuses on global media BY SALLY ACHARYA, MATT GETTY, and MIKE UNGER 
Photo by Jeff Watts
SOC distinguished journalist in residence Charles Lewis discusses investigative journalism with international reporters. The School of International Service’s fifth annual International Communication Conference recently welcomed 20 international journalists for a weeklong discussion on the media’s role in international relations. Hosted through the Department of State’s Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalism, the reporters came to campus from 20 different countries to debate how such issues as levels of press freedom, culturally biased reporting, and the growth of digital media impact the public interest around the world. “The explosion of media across borders is one of the biggest post–Cold War phenomena driving public policy,” said Shalini Venturelli, director of SIS’s International Communications program, which organized the conference. “In the past, foreign policy was established through private conversations between diplomats. One of the biggest forces shaping policy now is public opinion, and public opinion is being constructed largely by how the press covers international events.” The conference held nearly two dozen sessions between Apr. 12 and Apr. 17, including workshops organized by International Communication’s graduate students. Below are some highlights: SOC’s Charles Lewis discusses challenges to investigative journalism
Thursday, Apr. 12, Battelle-Tompkins Atrium The dangers international investigative journalists face might vary from one country to the next, but the challenges are similar, said SOC distinguished journalist in residence Charles Lewis during one of the conference’s lunchtime discussions, “Investigative Reporting and Freedom of Information Laws.” Underscoring the huge difference between U.S. reporting and reporting in some of the world’s repressive regimes, Lewis began by sharing an experience from a 1992 investigative reporting conference in Moscow. “The Russian journalists talked about their friends being murdered; the South African journalists talked about their sources being gunned down in the street,” he recalled. “The U.S. journalists complained about Freedom of Information Act requests taking too long.” Still, he noted, investigative journalism is far from alive and well in America. Financial cutbacks, the rise of entertainment over news, and media consolidation have all taken their toll, he explained. More than 5,000 reporters have been forced into “very early retirement” in recent years because of budget cutbacks, Lewis reported. If the trend continues, he warned, investigative journalism in the mainstream media is doomed. “If there are half as many reporters on the street as there were 20 years ago, then you can forget investigative reporting,” he said. “We’re talking about hieroglyphics here.” But there is hope, he added, sharing his experience of walking out on his job as a 60 Minutes producer in 1988 when CBS censored one of his stories. Shortly thereafter, he explained, he founded the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), a nonprofit that could serve as an example for reporters struggling to do investigative journalism through the mainstream media in other countries. In his time at the helm, he reported, CPI produced more than 300 investigative reports, breaking such stories as the White House Lincoln bedroom scandal and Haliburton’s war profiteering in Afghanistan and Iraq. “We were able to do what we wanted,” he said. “Nobody told us what to do.” Keynote explores struggle between culture and objectivity in international reporting
Saturday, Apr. 14, Butler Board Room In the conference’s keynote address “Questions about the Future of Global Journalism and the Public Interest” renowned journalist and Harvard professor Marvin Kalb shared his research into culture’s impact on the news. In his view as a Western reporter, Kalb said, “journalism is, was, and remains the single most important ingredient in maintaining democracy. Until you have a free, vibrant, and exciting media structure, you cannot have democracy.” But this view is not necessarily widely shared. His research has found that coverage of the same events can vary so widely from country to country that they often seem to be covering different events. Sometimes even the intent appears different. For instance, in reading numerous transcripts from the popular Arabic network Al-Jazeera, one word jumped out at him: Lebanese civilians killed in air attacks were consistently described as “martyrs.” The politically loaded word, he argued, belonged on the editorial page, not in a news article or broadcast. “In my sense of journalism,” Kalb said, “they should be described as victims of an Israeli air attack.” But a senior editor and chief producer of Al-Jazeera defended the use of the word by insisting, “We will use ‘martyr’ for as long as necessary until Palestine is a free and independent country.” This, said Kalb, was a view of journalism as a weapon in a struggle. The Arab press does not take a single uniform view on all issues, Kalb explained, but there is one common theme when it comes to Israeli aggression. Similarly, while the Israeli press expresses a multiplicity of viewpoints within Israel, it invariably expresses a notion that Israel is faced with an “existential threat.” For the press to function effectively, Kalb stressed that it needs to focus on accuracy beyond “responsibility” when “responsibility” translates as promoting the unquestioned interests of the government. Panelists discuss digital media’s impact on international coverage
Monday, Apr. 16, Kay Spiritual Life Center 
Photo by Jeff Watts
Barbara Slavin, Jon Sawyer, Kojo Nnamdi, and Jane Hall discuss international issues. It’s no secret that the newspaper—and some would say the entire news—business is in trouble. The emergence of digital media has created innumerable venues from which people can consume news. Pressured to maintain profit margins with dwindling circulations, many newspapers and television news divisions have closed expensive foreign bureaus and cut international coverage. That reaction might be good for the bottom line, but is it good for the country? A panel of journalists weighed in on that question during a conference panel discussion entitled “Serving the Public Interest Across Borders: How U.S. and International Media Face a Digital Future.” Barbara Slavin, a diplomatic reporter for USA Today, opened by asking the foreign journalists whether they’d heard the name Anna Nicole Smith, and whether they knew the name of Iran’s president. The response for each was about equal. “If this were an American audience, 95 percent, maybe 100 percent, would know who Anna Nicole Smith was, and almost none of them would know the name of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” she said. “After 9/11 there was a bump up in international coverage, but I think we’re starting to see that taper off, unfortunately. It’s an anxiety-producing time for reporters and editors. We’re all struggling to find interesting stories for our readers. We all have to find ways to make these issues relevant.” Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting president Jon Sawyer, who’s spearheading new ways of providing international coverage, shared one strategy for tackling the problem. His organization, he explained, offers grants to journalists covering underreported international news. “We want to create a demand for the kind of journalism we think is important,” Sawyer said. WAMU talk-show host Kojo Nnamdi marveled at the fact that digital media allows him to read newspapers from his native country, Guyana, online each morning. Yet, he said, he still finds it difficult to engage his listeners in international issues. “We have to establish a link between what’s going on [internationally] and the daily lives of our audience,” he said. “We try to make these stories as personal as possible. If the personal story is fascinating enough, the geopolitical location [is less important].” SOC journalism professor Jane Hall stressed the need to embrace new media rather than see it only as a threat. New tools like podcasts and blogs, she explained, can help bring international news to a wider audience. “I think there are tremendous opportunities for your organizations to sell, for lack of a better term, the world stories,” she said. |
