October 2011 Issue
International Media Ethics Day in Summary
From Albania to Zimbabwe, IMED a success
By Tom Nunn
The Center for International Media Ethics’ inaugural International Media Ethics Day (IMED) was celebrated on Friday, Sept. 23, 2011. More than 200 participants in 11 countries from four continents participated in the day’s events, with many others discussing media ethics issues online. It was a hugely successful event, and at CIME, we are already looking forward to next year’s IMED!
Here is a brief summary of some of the events that took place across the world.
Albania
In Albania, the IMED event was held at the Albanian University. Many participants called for the current legislative framework for journalists to be completely revised, as it has become outdated. The head of the Union of Albanian Journalists, Aleksander Cipa, spoke about the country’s social problems after 50 years of communism as well as the importance of not looking at journalism in isolation.
The event was broadcast live by UTV News and featured on both local and international news channels, including Vizion Plus and Voice of America.
Pakistan
The IMED workshop formed one part of Agahi’s workshop series that Mishal Pakistan conducted throughout the country with the support of CIME.
Aamir Latif, president of the Karachi Union of Journalists, stressed the need to highlight the ethical challenges Pakistani reporters face each day, calling IMED an opportunity for journalists to work together to make their own judgments and identify their own strategies. CIME associate Suzanne Harris answered questions on media ethics via video-conference. Participants concluded that a joint code of media ethics should be drawn up, summoning journalists to be proactive in creating one.
Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, IMED focused on the power the media has to mobilize the public to do great things. Ethiopian Journalists’ Association President Meseret Atalay said he believed that media ethics are at a critical point in Ethiopia and events like IMED are crucial in building a common understanding among journalists.
Through the event, the Ethiopian Journalists’ Anti-Corruption Network was able to inaugurate itself as an established network. The network aims to promote investigative journalism in a professional manner across the country. We at CIME are very proud to show our support for this network at the early stages of its development and we look forward to seeing the work its members achieve in the future.
Russia
The IMED event was held at the Central House of Journalists in Moscow in collaboration with the portal YOJU.ru. Journalists joined one another to discuss the media’s role in shaping public awareness and evaluate the performance of today’s media. A podcast of the discussion will soon be available in Russian on YOJU.ru’s website.
Peru
In Peru, the IMED event was held at the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicados in Lima. It brought together many journalists from across Peru to discuss case studies and role-plays that ranged from monitoring the government to obtaining facts to publishing confidential information.
There was also a lengthy and extremely thoughtful discussion about how to sensitively interview rape victims without re-victimizing them or dramatizing their situation using stereotypes.
Hungary
The IMED event held at the National Media and Infocommunications Authority welcomed speakers from the Institute of Media Sciences and the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs. Participants discussed The News of the World phone-hacking scandal, its ethical considerations and social consequences, and participated in related workshop exercises.
More than 20 journalism students also joined the event to partake in case studies about interviewing rape victims and covering catastrophes. The case-study work was followed by a panel discussion about the challenges of information retrieval in the twenty-first century, considering the prevalence of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Zimbabwe
For IMED in Zimbabwe, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) organized a meeting among journalists that included Geoffrey Nyarota, prominent Zimbabwean journalist and CIME advisor, and Takura Zhangazha, director of the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe.
Delegates at the event agreed that there is an urgent need in Zimbabwe to uphold the respectability of the media profession by strictly adhering to the cardinal rule of reporting truthfully and without bias. The indaba, or council, concluded the event by composing a set of recommendations for fostering professionalism in the media. The recommendations included regulations on issues such as newsroom policy, training workshops and journalist salaries.
South Sudan
In the world’s newest country of South Sudan, Peter Bongiri Ladu, CIME ambassador and secretary general of the South Sudan Union of Journalists, hosted an IMED event to discuss media ethics. Because South Sudan currently has no commonly accepted ethics and media law, the media needs support in defining unethical practices. The event’s delegates discussed this issue, focusing on problems like hate speech, bribery and plagiarism.
The event’s attendees asked for more media ethics training for journalists in Juba and other parts of South Sudan in hopes of adopting a common code of professional standards.
IMED events were also held in Cambodia, Ghana and Nigeria.
To read more about any of the events that took place on International Media Ethics Day, please refer to our website’s IMED page. To get information about participating in next year’s IMED to be held in September 2012, please contact us. | |
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