The DCMF attended a seminar session titled: How can the media report on cross cultural conflicts more effectively? during the second day of the 4th Alliance of Civilizations forum in Qatar.
Journalism training was essential to improving news content, agreed the speakers. There were other considerations too, such as encouraging language-learning and respecting local traditions.
Here is what some of the speakers had to say:
Princess Rym Ali, the founder of the Jordan Media Institute.
Ali said that it was important for the history of all religions should be taught, adding that it's “something we find is important when it comes to journalistic coverage anywhere really.”
She stressed the need for training and said that “any journalist who would want to grow in that profession should be given the opportunity to learn a second language, which would open minds and help achieve cultural understanding.”
Most importantly for Ali, though, was the need for companies and non-governmental organisations to invest in cross cultural training programmes for reporters which are home-grown “and not imported.”
During a question and answer session, Ali also said social media was a useful tool but is unlikely to ever replace traditional reporting in full.
Rachel Pulfer, the director at Canada's Journalists for Human Rights.
Pulfer's organisation has helped trained journalists in countries such as Liberia and Congo.
There is a simple motto, she reckoned, that would improve reporting in this area.
“Our strategy is simple,” she said, “and that's to encourage the writing of stories that put a human face on an issue and thus appeal to a common humanity in all of us.”
Pulfer gave the example of Sierra Leone to demonstrate how reporting on conflicts can be achieved by this method.
When dealing with the marginalisation of human rights, it's better not to preach, she advised. That is a tiring and sometimes useless method. “Rather put a human face on an issue through investigation, thorough storytelling and reporting.”
Felice Nudelman, The New York Times' (NYT) Education Network director.
The mantra at the NYT, the audience was told, is 'information is power, share it.'
In order to train reporters on conflict reporting, or during events such as elections in Egypt and Tunisia (as the NYT has), the paper's guidelines has to be constantly revisited, said Nudelman.
“We spent a lot of time scrubbing our ethical guidelines of bias for training purposes,” she said.
She added that training “has to come from our own best practices. If we haven't tested it against ourselves...we should have no right to go out and work with others.”
Antoine Cormery, France 24 Academie director
Cormery used examples of his organisation's training programme in Tunisia following the revolution.
Demonstrating the difficulties in training following an uprising, but also pointing to the necessity of such programmes after such conflicts, he explained some of the issues facing journalists.
“In the newsroom it was anarchy,” he said. Even though in some outlets a new editor may have been appointed after the revolution, the psychological effects for a group of people being under the authority of just one person created tension. “We were there to help them find a new way to do news in a professional way.”
Ricardo Corredor,Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano director.
Corredor summarised the session, saying that journalism training has to be based on local needs and that it was imperative to understand local challenges.
He added that when training comes from a certain media house, it has to be coherent and of the same guidelines as that news organisation. “You can't teach something and not act the same way,” he said.
