By Taylor Mirfendereski and Alex Moorhead

The IIJ recently hosted two prominent global journalists, John Schidlovsky and Francine Uenuma, at Ohio University. During their time in Athens, Schidlovsky and Uenuma shared with faculty and students their current journalism endeavors and previous international journalism experiences.

Schidlovsky is the director of the International Reporting Project and Uenuma is a multimedia editor for The Washington Post.

IIJ student-ambassadors, Taylor Mirfendereski and Alex Moorhead, present the highlights of the journalists’ campus visit in the following interviews.

During the two-day visit, they will give a lecture about the current trends, challenges and the future of international journalism to student taking our Foreign Correspondence class on February 22nd in Scripps 114 at 3pm.

To learn more about the two global journalists, visit the IIJ Blog by clicking on the following link:

http://scrippsiij.blogspot.com/

When you apply online, look for the following name of the journalism summer program: "Uganda: Media, Diversity and Governance: Summer 2010."

Students are encouraged to submit an online application through the Office of Education Abroad.

Students will be accompanied by Dr. Yusuf Kalyango, a journalism professor and Director of the Institute for International Journalism, who will teach a tier III course.

We will only accept 30 applications by March 5, 2010 and only admit a maximum of 16 students to the summer program. You may cancel your application by March 12, if you decide not to participate in the program, but you need to have applied (secured a place) in order to be considered.

Please come to the information session in Sing Tao - Room 101, on Feb 02, at 6:00pm to learn more about the program.

All questions regarding the fees and affordability will also be addressed. We look forward to seeing you on 02/02/10.

Students will increase their understanding of the East African history of monarchical rule, cultural norms, and political structures shaping attitudes towards governance. They will be acculturated into Uganda's socioeconomic welfare and fragmentation of more than 20 ethnic groups, each commanding a strong sense of cultural identity.

It will focus on specialized journalism, offer internships in news organizations, advertising firms, the national parliament, and non-for-profit organizations. Students will report, write stories, produce a TV documentary, blog, and tweet their experience in Uganda.

OU students will also learn coalition-building efforts, cross cultural communication, and problem solving skills, as they apprentice with local journalists, other university students, and as they interact with a wide array of academic and peasant contacts in cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic Kampala. It is designed to give OU students a stand-out lifetime discovery into the wonders of East Africa in an academic and enjoyable touristy environment.

This summer program includes the following travel excursions:

• A three-day trip to a game-drive wildlife national park.

• Visit the magnificent scenic parts of Uganda to see flora and fauna.

• Enjoy the virgin rural life of Eastern Uganda for a day.

• Visit several historical cultural sites and landmarks on the weekends.

Three courses will offer students exposure and immersion into the conditions under which East African media and journalists operate. They will experience the complexity of the economic and political environment in the news media, advertising or marketing firms, PR organizations, and non-for-profit sector.

This is a very affordable program, and students earn 9 (nine) credit hours toward their degree, which include a tier-III course, thereby fast-tracking journalism majors or keeping OU non-journalism majors on track for graduation.

Applicants should expect this to be a competitive academic expedition. Eligible students must have a cumulative GPA of 2.3 or higher (see program director if you are interested, but fall just short of that requirement). Eligibility is also incumbent upon a successful interview following the application and completion of pre-departure orientation.

To learn more about this study abroad program to Uganda, contact us at the following addresses:

Program Director: Dr. Yusuf Kalyango

205 Scripps Hall, Tel: 597-3335

Email: kalyango@ohio.edu

Program Coordinator: Molly Micheels

185 Lindley Hall, Tel: 593-1798

Email: micheels@ohio.edu

He will share his experiences in reporting international crises. He will give lectures on Tuesday and Wednesday, which will provide Ohio University students with fresh information on global issues such as water crisis and the climate change in countries he has covered.

“Easy Like Water: Reporting from the Front Line of Climate Change”

In Bangladesh, water poses a relentless threat to about 150 million people in a country the size of Iowa. With increasingly violent cyclones and accelerating glacier melt upstream, flooding may create more than 20 million “climate refugees” from Bangladesh, alone, by 2030. India is already building walls to keep Bangladeshis out.

Steve will speak to the university community in Anderson Auditorium located in Scripps Hall, Room 111 on October 28, at 6pm. Come and join the conversation on global climate change in this region with Steve Sapienza, an award-winning news and documentary producer who has covered a wide range of global issues" on Wednesday October 28, 2009 from 6pm to 7pm in Anderson Auditorium.

Stephen Sapienza is an award-winning news and documentary producer who has covered a wide range of global issues, including the HIV crisis in Haiti, sex workers in the Dominican Republic, child soldiers in Sierra Leone in Africa, the Cuban military crisis, and landmine survivors in Cambodia. He was co-producer for LiveHopeLove.com, a web project about HIV in Jamaica that was nominated for an Emmy in 2009. In 2008, he received the Ruth Adams Award for reporting on dwindling water supplies in Asia. In 2002, he produced "Deadlock: Russia's Forgotten War" for CNN Presents, winner of a CINE Golden Eagle.

He will dine also hold one-on-one talks with some students in Scripps 205 and in Sing Tao 101. Please email Professor Kalyango if you are interested in having an exclusive visit with Steve on Thursday morning between 10:00 am and 11:30am.

The scholarship funds given to Ellen are sufficient to cover her return air fare to South Africa, costs for ground transportation to go to work while in Johannesburg, and lodging for the three months. Ellen joins an exclusive fraternity of more than 200 journalism majors who have received international journalism scholarships through the IIJ to intern in more than 30 countries around the world. Other recipients of this year’s international scholarships include Michael Barajas who will travel to Jerusalem in Israel to intern with the Associated Press and Stine Eckert who will intern with the Aljazeera network in Washington, D.C.

While in South Africa, Ellen hopes to learn about the international news environment in one of the largest news markets in the world. It will be a combination of an advanced, well-developed news organization in an industrialized city in the midst of Sub-Saharan Africa. The internship will give her an opportunity to experience South African life and culture. She hopes to investigate issues of poverty, race relations 15 years after the end of the apartheid, and health challenges the nation faces. “Hopefully, I will be able to travel to other African nations either with SABC or Channel Africa which is owned by SABC, to explore the culture and important issues in neighboring countries.

Ellen worked as a reporter and anchor on the Athens MidDay news, where she gathered news, wrote, and edited news packages for the television newscast. During an internship at WLWT, the NBC affiliate in Cincinnati, Ohio, she had the opportunity to conduct interviews, including one with the governor of Ohio. She competed on a nationally televised reality music competition, Clash of the Choirs, and her winning choir won $250,000 for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. After the group was named Ambassadors of the Year in Cincinnati, she became a correspondent for WLWT Cincinnati’s local choir competition and produced profiles on several choirs for the evening news.

As for her graduate studies at Ohio University, Ellen has focused on African media and culture. Her thesis examined the U.S. network television coverage of events in Africa from 1977 to 2008. She also investigated and filed a special report for the IIJ’s Globetrotter Newsletter about Uganda’s successful campaign to reduce the infection rate of HIV/AIDS. A second special report investigated the Uganda Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate the use of the death penalty in Uganda.

The scholarship funds given to Ellen are sufficient to cover her return air fare to South Africa, costs for ground transportation to go to work while in Johannesburg, and lodging for the three months. Ellen joins an exclusive fraternity of more than 200 journalism majors who have received international journalism scholarships through the IIJ to intern in more than 30 countries around the world. Other recipients of this year’s international scholarships include Michael Barajas who will travel to Jerusalem in Israel to intern with the Associated Press and Stine Eckert who will intern with the Aljazeera network in Washington, D.C.

While in South Africa, Ellen hopes to learn about the international news environment in one of the largest news markets in the world. It will be a combination of an advanced, well-developed news organization in an industrialized city in the midst of Sub-Saharan Africa. The internship will give her an opportunity to experience South African life and culture. She hopes to investigate issues of poverty, race relations 15 years after the end of the apartheid, and health challenges the nation faces. “Hopefully, I will be able to travel to other African nations either with SABC or Channel Africa which is owned by SABC, to explore the culture and important issues in neighboring countries.

Ellen worked as a reporter and anchor on the Athens MidDay news, where she gathered news, wrote, and edited news packages for the television newscast. During an internship at WLWT, the NBC affiliate in Cincinnati, Ohio, she had the opportunity to conduct interviews, including one with the governor of Ohio. She competed on a nationally televised reality music competition, Clash of the Choirs, and her winning choir won $250,000 for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. After the group was named Ambassadors of the Year in Cincinnati, she became a correspondent for WLWT Cincinnati’s local choir competition and produced profiles on several choirs for the evening news.

As for her graduate studies at Ohio University, Ellen has focused on African media and culture. Her thesis examined the U.S. network television coverage of events in Africa from 1977 to 2008. She also investigated and filed a special report for the IIJ’s Globetrotter Newsletter about Uganda’s successful campaign to reduce the infection rate of HIV/AIDS. A second special report investigated the Uganda Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate the use of the death penalty in Uganda.

Stine’s interest in global issues and her unerring desire to confront international crises as a correspondent is an exemplar of the mission of the IIJ, which is to promote the mediation and resolution of conflicts through a well intentioned global “media agenda”. One of the reasons she was selected for this international reporting assignment was because of a story she reported in our Foreign Correspondence course about the struggles of women in that country.

Stine came to the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism as an exchange undergraduate student from Leipzig University, Germany. The exchange is part of a special arrangement between the two journalism schools at Ohio University and Leipzig University. The IIJ has played a central role in that exchange of journalism students and faculty visits.

As a reporting fellow for the Pulitzer Center, Stine will have an opportunity to spend several weeks in Bangladesh investigating food security challenges and the rights of women in that developing nation. Expenses for that international assignment are provided by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. She will also receive a cash award of up to $2,000 from the Pulitzer Center.

Stine was one of my brightest and most engaged students in the foreign correspondence class. She was also the editor-in-chief of the first volume of The Globetrotter international newsletter, published by the IIJ. Stine also contributes international stories to the IIJ’s online edition of the International Special Reports project.

In April 2009, Stine was announced as one of three recipients of our competitive John R. Wilhelm Foreign Correspondence Internship scholarship, which is a separate international reporting opportunity administered annually by the IIJ. Stine will spend another three months reporting for Aljazeera international television from Washington, D.C. to complete her IIJ Foreign Correspondence scholarship. She plans to undertake this latter project when she returns from Bangladesh.

The Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University is a member of the Pulitzer Center’s Campus Consortium. The IIJ is the primary coordinator of the Campus Consortium between the Pulitzer Center and the Scripps College of Communication. The E. W. Scripps School of Journalism with the support from other departments in the Scripps College of Communication contributes $10,000 to the Campus Consortium of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

The role of the IIJ in that partnership is to fulfill the Pulitzer Center’s educational outreach programs by fostering the debate on global crisis issues through OU campus visits by international journalists fresh from the field; and to enable student interaction and engagement in international issues reporting.

We have received a total 47 emails from veteran journalists and staffers in several news organizations who have either given feedback or made suggestions on how our students can polish their stories or how we can engender global reach for the newsletter. The list of recipients for our international newsletter is provided at the bottom of this memo.

The Class of 2009 covered and filed about 50 international special reports, produced 98 international current affairs commentaries and op-eds, and also generated data for 25 country beat memos. Our reporters also maintained a tri-weekly online discussion through the IIJ bulletin board, where they reacted to pertinent issues in the news from around the world. Students posted critiques and commentaries on our bulletin discussion board tackling issues ranging from illiberal democracy, peace building, human rights abuses, environmental concerns, and globalization.

The Globetrotter is an international news and current affairs newsletter. The investigative special reports are originally investigated, reported, written, edited, and published by students in conjunction with the Institute for International Journalism.

The first two globetrotter issues featured news articles that focused on a myriad of global challenges such as terrorism, global health, environmental degradation, globalization, gender imbalance, rule of law, and religion. The next issue of The Globetrotter will come out in the fall quarter. Please visit our blog at http://scrippsiij.blogspot.com/ to read or view what our students have produced.

The Globetrotter is now mailed to the following organizations.

The Overseas Press Club of America

International Federation of Journalists (Paris & London)

International Center for Journalists

Commonwealth Press Union (London)

Knight Center for Journalism Training and Excellence

The World Press Institute

East African Media Institute

The Pulitzer Center for International Crisis Reporting

Project for Excellence in Journalism

Committee of Concerned Journalists

Watch Jason Motlagh's interview at the IIJ.

Our international correspondence students interacted with Motlagh at different for a. Here is a brief synopsis of what some of our students took away from his wealth of international affairs knowledge:

Emily Mullin concurs with Motlagh that spreading awarenessof the world’s troubled spots and giving voices to the underprivileged are probably the most important things a journalist can do. Kristin Eckert wrote on the Institute’s website that ethnicity and religion are often not contained within national or geographic boundaries. “By exposing these links and keeping the topic alive in the media, a public debate can create pressure resulting in action by a (foreign) government, NGO, or even individuals to help,” says Eckert.

One of the issues Celia Shortt says she learned for the foreign correspondence class is that every person has a story to tell, no matter how poor and no matter the government’s interest or disinterest. “Each of those stories has the power to impact people all over the world. Just because a person or group of people is poor does not mean that what they are going through is not important. International correspondents should not let government’s interest or any other factors of that nature stop them from telling these stories.”

Motlagh’s lecture to the 24 students in the foreign correspondence course focused on how future international journalists can prepare for an increasingly dangerous world. He discussed global issues such as conflicts and the current social and political situations in a number of South Asian countries.

If you are interested in international journalism, please do not hesitate to contact the Institute’s director, Professor Yusuf Kalyango for more information. You can also read some of the work produced by our students on the Insitute for International JOurnalism's blog at the following site: http://scrippsiij.blogspot.com/