Applications for the 2010 McCloy Fellowship in Journalism for journalists just starting their careers are now being accepted.
From the web site:
McCloy Fellowships in Journalism provide transatlantic roundtrip airfare, approved inter-city travel, and a daily stipend of $200 for up to 21 days abroad to cover housing, meals, and local transportation. Journalists attached to media organizations are encouraged to apply. Freelance journalists are asked to demonstrate where resulting articles and/or other pieces could be placed. Applicants must hold U.S. or German citizenship to be eligible. American applicants may travel to Germany and/or other EU27 countries, provided that the project bears significance for contemporary Germany within the wider EU context. For American applicants, while knowledge of the German language may be helpful, it is not a prerequisite of the program. German applicants must travel to the United States, and all German applicants must be proficient in English.
For more information and application form, click here.
By Mariano Castillo, CNN February 4, 2010 — Updated 0506 GMT (1306 HKT) (CNN) — In most places, when 16 people are gunned down, the local media reports the incident without missing a beat.
But when the massacre described above happened last weekend in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, the editors of the city’s largest daily newspaper had to have a long discussion before deciding to cover and investigate the story.
As drug cartel violence continues unabated throughout Mexico, journalists find themselves walking a thin line between covering the story and becoming part of it.
The Georgian Public Broadcasting (GPB) is conducting talks with the Hot Bird satellite network in regard to the Georgia’s Russian-language First Caucasian channel.
“It’s an American provider company being conducted the talks with,” GPB staff reported.
Hot Bird launched talks when EUTELSAT declared of its final denial to GPB over concluding the contract on the First Caucasian channel. On February 2 the Georgian side sued the French company at the Paris court.
EUTELSAT cut the GPB-based First Caucasian two-week trial broadcasting on January 28.
According to the Georgian side taking the First Caucasian channel off was due to the Russian pressure; EUTELSAT though cited the expiration of the trial period as a reason.
“From our viewpoint Russia has got less levers of pressure upon the American company,” GPB staff told Media.ge.
The contract to be concluded with Hot Bird in the near future, according to the staff, provides the First Caucasian broadcasts across Europe.
The TV broadcasts are currently available via the Internet.
In the democracies we all know about the student demonstrations in Venezuela that started when the Chavez government closed down a popular cable channel because it did not air all of Chavez’s speeches or play enough patriotic music.
Rumors spread, murmurs become official notes and newspapers report – several weeks later – what the whole country already knows. We have gone from rationed information to a veritable “coming out” that flows in parallel with the censorship of the official media. Our glasnost has not been driven from offices and ministries, but has emerged in mobile phones, digital cameras and removable memories. The same black market that supplied powdered milk or detergent now offers illegal Internet connections and television programs that arrive through prohibited satellite dishes.
This is how we learned of the events in Venezuela during the last week. My own cell phone has been on the verge of collapse from so many messages telling me about the student protests and the closure of several television stations. I forward copies of these brief headlines to everyone in my address book, in a network that mimics viral transmission: I spread it to many and they in turn inoculate a hundred more with the information. There is no way to stop this form of broadcast news, because it does not use a fixed structure but mutates and adapts to each circumstance. It is anti-hegemonic, although the little word acquires different connotations in the Cuban case, where the hegemony has belonged to the newspaper Granma, the TV show The Round Table, and the DOR*.
Generation Y is an interesting blog right out of Cuba with the following tag:
“Generation Y is a Blog inspired by people like me, with names that start with or contain a “Y”. Born in Cuba in the ’70s and ’80s, marked by schools in the countryside, Russian cartoons, illegal emigration and frustration.”
I just posted a lengthy piece on a new war of words between Georgia and Russia. Rather than repeat it all here, I am posting the first few grafs and then a link to my site on international journalism.
Georgian Public Broadcast had its new Russian-language channel, First Caucasian, carried on Eutelsat for the last half of January.
And here is where it gets interesting. The Georgians say the channel was dropped because of pressure from Moscow. The satellite company says the two-week run was just a trial.
Brett Junvik is only 26, but he’s already traveled around the world telling stories of impoverished people and the international aid groups that assist them. To accompany his piece in the January/February issue of Quill, the young filmmaker made this brief video to share his experience with others looking to do the same.
“Let us become a community of journalists that build relationships and bridge cultures,” says Junvik in the video, “storytellers that are truly for the people.”
Got this notice today and I figured it has some good information for local news organizations about students heading to other countries to study.
Just think about all the college students in your area who will be going on semester abroad or summer abroad programs. This release from the State Department provides basic information that schools, parents and students should know.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
For Immediate Release February 1, 2010
MEDIA NOTE
Safety Information for American Students Traveling Abroad
As spring and summer breaks approach, many students are getting ready for a trip abroad. The majority of students traveling abroad will have safe and enjoyable adventures. However, even with the best-planned trips, things can go wrong.
Each year, more than 2,500 American citizens are arrested abroad – about half on narcotics charges, including possession of very small amounts of illegal substances.
Being arrested is not the only thing that can go wrong on a foreign vacation. U.S. citizens have been badly injured or have been killed in automobile accidents, falls, and other mishaps. Many of these incidents are related to alcohol and/or drug use. Other have been sexually assaulted or robbed because they found themselves in unfamiliar locales, were incapable of protecting themselves because of drug or alcohol use, or were the victims of a “date rape” drug.
The most common cause of death of U.S. citizens overseas, other than natural causes, is by motor vehicle accidents. Students traveling abroad should be aware that standards of safety overseas might be different from those in the United States, or non-existent.
The Bureau of Consular Affairs website for American students traveling overseas, studentsabroad.state.gov, provides usefulsafety and travel information for students prior to their travel. Students are strongly urged to review the information on the site and sign up online at https://travelregistration.state.gov to receive the latest travel information from the Department of State. Signing up makes it possible for the State Department to contact the student traveler, if necessary, in case of a family emergency in the United States or because of a crisis in the foreign country.
Please see the Department of Homeland Security’s web site www.getyouhome.govfor more information on the requirements for a passport, passport card, or other approved document to reenter the United States after travel abroad.
For further information contact:
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Office of Policy Coordination and Public Affairs
Press inquiries: (202) 647-1488
Public inquiries: toll-free (888) 407-4747
Banned topic include the expected any discussion of the Tiananmen Square massacre but also include any public protests against the government and photos of actresses topless on a beach.
In a statement released with the document IFJ General Secreatry Aidan White said:
“We further call on the international community to take a principled stand to oppose all forms of restrictions on the rights of journalists to do their work in China, including the steady stream of official bans as well as new rules in 2009 which make it virtually impossible for local journalists who work in traditional or online media to receive the accreditation they need in order to conduct their profession.”
According to the IFJ’s press release, the report “details 62 bans issued from January to November 2009, among hundreds of regulations issued by central and provincial authorities in the past year.”
And I heard this morning on NPR that the flights were not stopped. According to this story, Miami authorities (who?) asked that victims from Haiti be sent elsewhere to allow the Miami hospitals enough space to handle the crowd that will be attending the Super Bowl.
I still wonder why this issue and this story is coming out now. Why weren’t local reporters looking at the flood of people from Haiti coming into local hospitals?
