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Four
outstanding international journalists engaged students during
the PWR Knight Fellows Roundtable Week this Fall Quarter, 2006.
These individual sessions, organized by Paul Bator’s PWR
2 “Speaking of Human Rights” class, followed upon
the Inaugural Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture featuring CNN Chief
International Correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, held in Kresge
Auditorium October 17th.
Margarita
Akhvlediani, Caucasus program director and regional editor of
the London-Based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
for Tbilisi, Georgia, described her direction of a team of 150
reporters covering the post-Soviet republics, including Chechnya.
A close friend and colleague of the recently slain Russian journalist,
Anna Politskovaya, Akhvlediani brought a reservoir of journalistic
courage and compassion to her presentation. She candidly acknowledged
to students that “I cover my face with an hijab” in
order to “cross still-forbidden borders between neighbors
in the region.” Margarita invited students who might be
interested in an internship with IWPR to contact her.
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It was absolutely
no surprise to attentive present and former PWR students that
Knight Fellow Andrew Mwenda, political editor of The Daily
and Sunday Monitor, Kampala, Uganda, has accumulated
so many journalism awards, including Outstanding Performance Award
by the Uganda Broadcasting Association in 2004 and the Michael
Ezra Award for Best Talk Show Host in 2003. Armed with equal parts
charm, erudition, and experience, Mwenda challenged his eager
audience to deconstruct short-term “aid” assumptions
about how to conduct campaigns against disease, poverty, and genocide
in Africa. Mwenda’s personal analysis of the tragedy in
Darfur sparked sobering dialogue about how the international community
should respond to and resolve the crisis. His off-the-cuff stories
about sharing limos with President George Bush and confronting
Tony Blair over dinner leavened the hour. The London Times has
written that Mwenda “appears a likely candidate” to
be the next President of Uganda—something Andrew told us
he takes “less than seriously.”
Christianne
González, Knight Foundation Latin American Fellow,highlighted
ways to stimulate efforts to “increase digital literacy
in developing countries.” Drawing upon her editorial expertise
at Universo Online in São Paulo, Brazil, González
also responded at length to student questions on a range of health,
education, and human-rights related issues. Christianne interspersed
her responses with candid personal anecdotes about the rewards
and “risks of being a journalist” in a country with
as volatile a political and economic climate as Brazil.
Patricia Mercado
Sánchez, Editor-in-Chief of Periódico El Economista
in Mexico City, was a principal reporter covering the talks leading
to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Sánchez articulated
strong views about the teachers’ strike in Oaxaca and responded
to student questions about demand for the “resignation of
Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz.” Patricia outlined her participation
in three World Congresses held by the Academy of the Spanish Language
because of her ongoing interest in “the correct use of Spanish”
by the news media.
As a result
of the Knight Fellows Roundtable Week, several PWR students are
conducting follow-up meetings with the journalists.
Look for a forthcoming student-conducted feature interview with
Andrew Mwenda to appear in Six Degrees.
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