Media and Issues

The World Health Organization (WHO) has produced an influenza pandemic handbook for journalists to help demystify the science behind avian and pandemic influenza. It is an introduction to everything one needs to know about influenza, including about avian influenza and the potential for a pandemic. The contents include: The influenza basics Avian influenza and pandemic influenza - what's the...

The United States, in an attempt to salvage its image abroad especially among journalists in Islamic countries, has announced a programme that will bring up to 100 foreign journalists to the US to "foster more understanding about the American press and its function in a democracy." The US state department Tuesday announced the launch of a new international journalism programme, in partnership with...

GWALIOR: You might have come across several newspapers writing on the plight of women, but have you ever heard about a paper run by women, for women and to women? If not, then come to Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh to read through 'Mahila Paksh', India's first women centric newspaper, covering issues and subjects ranging from atrocities on women to their achievements in various fields. With reporters...

Use of the Internet as a resource and a forum strongly influences participation in civic affairs, often more than traditional media and even face-to-face communication, according to a study by a University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism professor. The study by Dhavan Shah, published in the October edition of the journal Communication Research, analysed data from surveys conducted during and after...

Are the media and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Japan friends or foes? How should the media cover NGOs? Should NGOs stage media stunts? Those were some of the questions posed to a panel of activists and journalists in Kyoto last month. Though the Japanese civil society sector has traditionally been smaller than in other major developed countries, the growing role of NGOs is one of most...

For a missing child to attract widespread publicity and improve the odds of being found, it helps if the child is white, wealthy, cute and under 12. Experts agree that whites account for only half of the nation’s missing children. But white children were the subjects of more than two-thirds of the dispatches appearing on the Associated Press’ national wire during the last five years and for three...

Military autopsy reports provide indisputable proof that detainees are being tortured to death while in US military custody. Yet the corporate media of the United States (US) is covering it with the seriousness of a garage sale for the local Baptist Church, media research organisation Project Censored has said. According to Prof Peter Phillips, director, Project Censored, a press release on these...

The world's media has been criticised for being too negative in its reporting of environmental issues. Continual coverage of destruction was making people switch off, delegates at the International Media and Environment Summit (Imes) in Kuching, Malaysia, were told. "We keep crying wolf and we keep overstating the doomsday scenario," said Ong Keng Yong, the Secretary General of the Association of...

From 16th February – 8th March 2006, hundreds of gender and media activists, human rights groups, grassroots communication organisations, academics and students of communication, media professionals, journalists associations, alternative media networks and church groups from North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific will join forces to take...

HAVANA, Nov 24 (IPS) - More than 100 journalists from 14 countries have started networking to find ways round censorship, give gender equality greater prominence in the media, and promote the use of non-sexist language. The International Network of Journalists with a Gender Vision came into being in the city of Morelia, Mexico as a non-hierarchical, inclusive organisation that builds on the...