Reporting between the lines: International Education Week presentation

I joined Kim Kierans, journalism professor and VP of King's College, and Stephen Puddicombe, CBC foreign correspondent, for a public chat on the changing face of international journalism recently at Dalhousie University. Kim introduced us (by way of Power Point) to a rising generation of young Asian reporters working with her and amongst themselves, often against great odds, to apply new standards of journalism in their countries. Stephen shared harrowing tales of survival and misfortune from his time in Afghanistan, Haiti and elsewhere. I waffled on about some rather post-modern sounding ideas I have about how facts are not enough and that journalism needs to start presenting points-of-view and even subjective sensations from other countries. It sounds flakey, mostly because I haven't got the practical implications worked out, but it comes from a very deep frustration I feel at knowing my own personal experience living in a foreign country is not reflected by the rather wooden stories that come out of it. I take heart in the fact that new media, such as twitter and blogs, produced by the people themselves - rather than the reporters who talk to them for a few minutes through an interpreter - are filling those gaps. We just have to work out a way of bringing that media to the masses. Or something like that. Anyway, I'm not sure why I and "my partner" look so grumpy in this photo. The discussion that followed our presentations was actually a very happy, enervating moment. Check out a pithy summary of the event.

Photo credit: Stephanie Directo.

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