An invitation to a conference about diversifying media in Germany opened my eyes to how far behind Western Europe is on the concept of diversity.

The conference was held in Berlin as a transatlantic discussion on the Impact of the Media on the Integration Process in Europe and the United States.

The first thing that struck me was the absence at the conference of minority members of the population they are trying to integrate. In fact the only non-Caucasian speakers and attendees came, ironically, from the United States, me one of them.

Germany, like other countries in the region including France and the U.K. are grappling with a burgeoning immigrant population. Immigrant diversity for Germany mainly means the 1.8 million Turkish in the country. Most of these Turks, however, are not counted by the German government who will not recognize them as bonafide German citizens.

In fact in order to be a German citizen you must have direct lineage in the country. There are other groups who have been in the country for generations and are still not considered German citizens. This includes what the country deems as ethnic minorities, some Danish and Serbs in rural parts of the country.

This German pluralism goes deeper than that. One German journalist at the conference said that despite the fact that he was born in Germany and both of his parents hold German passports he will never be considered a German. This is because he grew up in Kosovo and speaks with a thick accent.

How this impacts media is major German dailies like the Der Spiegel have only one reporter out of more than one hundred who is not German. He is a Turk. A reporter from the publication lamented this fact, but I found it hard to believe that with a little more searching, the newspaper could find more journalists from diverse backgrounds.

I spoke on the importance of ethnic media in the United States to bring to light important stories on immigrant and ethnic communities. I was surprised to learn that some in Germany think that ethnic media isolates immigrant communities and support the creation of terrorist networks. I countered with examples in the United States of ethnic media telling their readers how to vote, informing them on major national issues, and helping communities become more engaged in the new society they live in. All participants agreed this was the beginning of an important discussion in Germany that can only gain momentum in the future.

I happen to be globe hopping during my blogging days which means that you’ll get to hear about my observations on media outside the U.S.

Some of you may have read about my adventures with other fellow SPJ members at the annual Asia Journalists Association meeting in South Korea. In case you missed the coverage you can find it on the website. Read about how Robert Ledger, Todd Gilliam, Neil Rackers, Kevin Smith and I exchanged ideas with other journalists across Asia and did a kimchi tour with pics. Aside from the gastronomic pleasures, it was valuable to learn the challenges journalists face across Asia. We all agreed that many of the issues reminded us of challenges we face now in media in America.

From Cambodia to Nepal to Malaysia, journalists are being harassed or jailed for being critical of their government or simply doing their jobs. We have Josh Wolf, but there are countless Josh Wolfs in Asia, yet we rarely hear about them in the United States. In Nepal, where they are celebrating peace and a new democracy after a long period of civil war between the government and Maoists separatists, press freedoms still lag behind. The newly installed Maoist representatives are threatening journalists who are or have been critical of them. There are other extreme cases across the region. Journalists are getting beaten and raped in Mongolia. In the Philippines, 28 journalists who have spoken out against the government have been killed since 2001.

After I bid farewell to my SPJ crew, I left for my native Thailand. In September a military coup ousted the leadership of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who among other things, gagged the press heavily in the country.  I learned that despite new leadership, media in Thailand continues to be heavily controlled and censored by the former regime. The majority of TV channels in the country are owned by the Prime Minister or his associates. This makes the process of informing Thailand’s population about the excesses of the former government still difficult. During the AJA conference SPJ members reported to the other Asian countries about this type of government-influenced media that tainted the U.S. after the Armstrong Williams scandal. Most understood this problem well. For example, in Cambodia we learned about how most Cambodian media serve political parties and rich and powerful politicians despite the promise of being free press.

As Western and Eastern journalists together we talked in depth about ways to publicize and combat these attacks to press freedoms.

The good news? Citizen journalism. Bloggers and the like in countries like South Korea and Singapore have been able to break through government influence of media and change the tide of elections. A good Internet connection or just plain text messaging is keeping democracy alive in this region. Even heavy-handed countries like Singapore are realizing that they must give some concessions to citizen bloggers and the youth who are growing in number and influence. Could other Asian countries not be far behind?

Next stop: Berlin and a conference on how their media is trying to integrate ethnic media  from its growing immigrant population.

In this post-911 era, it’s vitally important for Americans to be able to access real and practical information about issues related to Arab and Muslim communities. Sadly, however, the information we get about the Middle East from the major media is often narrow in focus and limited in scope.

Last week I interviewed a California academic of Lebanese descent, who spoke about his contiuned frustration with major media’s coverage of Lebanon. We specifically discussed a November 27 New York Times article entitled “Chilling Echo for Lebanon, Mirror of Regional Tension.” While the story offered lots of detail related to the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, founder of a right-wing Lebanese Christian militia movement, it did not, as my academic guest pointed out, adequately discuss the conflict in Lebanon in the context of U.S. foreign policy. Similarly, the major media rarely connects issues in Israel and the Occupied Territories (and the unquestioning U.S. support of Israel) with conflicts in other parts of the Middle East.

I worry that there is a fear among U.S. journalists that if they quote from Arab media or seek out expertise from Arab and Muslim experts that they will be labelled unpatriotic, or in the case of coverage of Israel, anti-Semitic. We do all of our readers, viewers, and listeners a disservice if we worry so much about playing it politically safe that we lose the courage to put forth issues in a way that will help people better understand the complex past present and future of the U.S. involvment in the Middle East.

The U.S. Supreme Court is presenting newsrooms will an excellent opportunity to include more diversity in its news coverage.

“At a time of rising de facto segregation in public schools, the high court is to hear arguments on lawsuits by parents in Louisville and Seattle who are challenging policies that use race to determine where children go to school,” the Associated Press reports.

“The school policies are designed to keep schools from segregating along the same lines as neighborhoods,” the report explains.

Parents, politicians, educators and civil rights advocates – not to mention students themselves – are watching this major ruling to determine what value the nation should place on diversity in the classroom and at what price.

The case could become the most significant K-12 ruling since Brown v Board of education in 1954 that banned racial segregation in public schools.

Many civil rights leaders are not optimistic. The case brings before the high court the question of just how far the government should go in trying to promote diversity in education in America, says Ellis Cose, the author of a study on affirmative action.

Should the government help promote diversity in some way in education? That’s at the core of this case.

The Bush administration argues the policies are unconstitutional.

Civil rights advocates believe that the case could bar schools from taking race into account and mwould deal a devastating blow to the promotion of diverse schools, the A.P. report says.

The NAACP believes race-neutral alternatives such as lotteries and socio-economic sorting result in segregated schools again and hurt African-American students.

About 400 of the nation’s 15,000 public school districts are under court orders to desegregate. Hundreds more do it voluntarily, but no hard numbers are available, A.P. says.

This presents newsrooms a wonderful opportunity to add more diversity to its news coverage by interviewing local minority leaders on the issue.

While the Supreme Court case seems to focus on African-Americans, the implications and applications for Latinos and Asian-Americans is also strong, so assignment editors could include them in their coverage as well.

This issue is “as old as Reconstruction efforts to integrate blacks into the mainstream and as new as the 5:35 a.m. start time on some busses carrying students across town in Louisville, Kentucky,” A.P. reports.

“Diversity is not simply a discussion about different ethnicities,” said President Christine Tatum in an interview during a two-day visit to San Diego recently.

“We also need to be sensitive to newsrooms that reflect diversity of religion,” she emphasized.

We do very well covering the police beat and politics. We get caught up in the daily grind of covering stories when a priest gets indicted or bigots burn down a church. But, religious stories get pushed back onto the Friday religious page, rather than in hard news.

We could do much more to add religious diversity into our news coverage, and especially what we report on Muslims.

Unfortunately, when some see a Muslim, they also think terrorist. That’s wrong, and newsrooms with religious diversity in their coverage can do a lot to counter such prejudice.

In their coverage of the Pope’s recent visit to Turkey, how many newsrooms asked local Muslim leaders for their reaction?

The Economist published in London on December 2^nd said that “the Pope has given heart to a growing body of people who demand ‘reciprocity’ in relations between the Muslim world and the West.     “Their argument is that since Muslim minorities are free to practice their faith in historically Christian countries, the Western world should expect Muslim countries to show more respect for the rights of local Christians (and indeed, Jews).”

The Economist doesn’t like that argument. “The West should treat all religious groups fairly on principle – not as a part of a trade-off.

“Apart from the general principle of human rights,” the Economist reported, “religious diversity is a safeguard against the ‘clash of civilizations’ between Islam and the West that extremists expect or want.”

While these issues are prominent in the coverage of the Pope’s visit to Turkey, they also play out in American communities where Muslims live and worship.

Your assignment editor probably has the phone number for a contact person within the local Catholic community, but does that person also have a contact person within your local Muslim community?

Reaction to this blog is invited. Contact me (619) 757-4909 are E-mail at leopowerhere@msn.com.