‘That day I saw the power of media, and how it can be tragic’

University of Papua New Guinea's Emily Matasororo ... in the background, images of heavily armed police
shortly before they opened fire on peaceful students. Image:" Del Abcede/PMC

By DAVID ROBIE

SURPRISING that a conference involving some of the brightest minds in journalism education from around the world should be ignored by New Zealand’s local media.

Some 220 people from 43 countries were at the Fourth World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) conference in Auckland.

The range of diversity alone at the Auckland University of Technology hosted event was appealing, but it was the heady mix of ideas and contributions that offered an inspiring backdrop.

Topics included strategies for teaching journalism for mobile platforms – the latest techniques; “de-westernising” journalism education in an era of new media genres; transmedia storytelling; teaching hospitals; twittering, facebooking and snapchat -- digital media under the periscope; new views on distance learning, and 21st century ethical issues in journalism are just a representative sample of what was on offer.

Keynote speakers included Divina Frau-Meigs (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle) with a riveting account on how "powerful journalism" makes "prime ministers jump", the Center of Public Integrity’s Peter Bale (a New Zealander) on the need to defend press freedom, and Tongan newspaper publisher and broadcaster who turned “inclusivity” on its head with an inspiring “include us” appeal from the Pacific,"where we live in the biggest continent on planet Earth".

Laying an ethical foundation

More on the Singapore WJEC debate: AJR editor Ian Richards points out in an ongoing JEA debate that the Singapore declaration preamble refers to "the effective and responsible practice of journalism", states that journalism "should serve the public in many important ways", and states that "above all, to be a responsible journalist must involve an informed ethical commitment to the public". He believes it's much better to approach the issue this way and so lay a foundation for dialogue and communication with others in our field around the globe than to have no foundation at all, which would be the case if no allowance was made for "political reality".

Bland and descriptive - and free speech?

A Singapore clarification from Alan Knight, the Oz board member of AMIC:
"I recall saying from the podium in Singapore, I thought the WJEC declaration was bland and descriptive. I also wondered why there was no reference to freedom of speech or the Declaration of Human Rights.
"Just for the record, the journalism education declaration was formulated by the WJEC which is a completely separate organisation from AMIC which in this case merely hosted the conference."
Just to add my few words, I tend to dismiss the recent negatives about "development journalism" - it is often misunderstood by western journos, particularly from Oz and NZ (most NZ j-schools cover little about news values outside the Kiwi environment). Vigorous development journalism as often practised in the Philippines and the Pacific, for example, uncovers corruption, is committed to media freedom and demands accountability - and usually requires a level of personal courage from journalists rarely needed in western media environments.
Alan noted the closing day speech by Anwar Ibrahim - this was inspired, even brilliant. It was worth being at this conference to hear him! Certainly he was one of the highlights for me.

More on the Singapore 'models'

Check out Digital Learning for the UNESCO booklet launch at AMIC and Guy Berger's Conversant blog and WJEC for the other "models".

The Singapore declarations - and the risks

One of the highlights for me at the AMIC conference in Singapore last month - where I gave a paper offering a critique of international media aid in the Pacific and was reelected as the NZ country rep - was a visit to Nanyang Technological University (pictured), which has one of the best communication studies and journalism programmes in Asia (Wee Kim Wee).

A United Nations "Model Curricula for Journalism Education for Developing Countries and Emerging Democracies" booklet was launched at AMIC and various syndicates of the parallel World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) had their own crack at producing "models" . Guy Berger at Rhodes University in SA posted a good rundown on discussion on his Conversant blog. But on the JEAnet, John Herbert noted a warning:

"I hope this WJEC thing doesn't over take the domestic JEA agenda and meetings etc...one thing that Singapore told me was that the universality of journalism and journalism education is a bit of a pipe dream, and extremely dangerous, and could easily lead to the imposition by the strongest on the rest, colluding with globalism and journalistic imperialism at the expense of localised journalism and journalism education fit for local purpose rather than adhering to some kind of universal ( inevitably Western) approach....we need to keep focused on the internal Australia problems, which are very important ones to solve at the moment, particularly the RQF matter which needs the biggest guns in the university journalism schools to be involved, the professors and senior highly thought of journalism educators need to be at the spearhead of this discussion...."