'Human Rights and the Media'
Journalists and human rights professionals will discuss the media's role and responsibility in reporting on human rights issues and abuses around the world and offer advice to student activists about how to use the media effectively in human rights advocacy during a symposium taking place Friday and Saturday, March 31 and April 1, at the Law School.
Titled "Human Rights and the Media," the event is the third annual Robert L. Bernstein Human Rights Symposium, sponsored by the Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights. The yearly symposium honors Robert L. Bernstein, the founder and former chair of Human Rights Watch.
"Recent events have highlighted a variety of difficult and important questions related to the media's role with respect to human rights coverage," write Schell Center staff members who are organizing the event. "For example, should traditional notions of journalistic neutrality give way in the face of massive human rights abuses or humanitarian crises to a new notion of journalistic responsibility? Do changes in the structure of the media, such as the widespread consolidation of media ownership and the reduction in foreign correspondents, require re-examination of news coverage in the human rights field? Is a new 'genre' of human rights journalism emerging?"
The symposium will begin at 3 p.m. on Friday with the first session of training for student activists. Journalists and human rights professionals will discuss strategies for getting the media to cover human rights issues. Panelists will include Doug Stanglin, foreign editor of USA Today, David Gelber of CBS News and Minky Worden, electronic media director for Human Rights Watch.
The second media training session for students will begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday, when Celia Alario and Mark Floegel of the Ruckus Society will lead a workshop covering such topics as how the media operates, how to craft leads and soundbites, pitching the story, "spin control" and message delivery. Pre-registration is recommended for this event; to register, send e-mail to thomas.perriello@yale.edu.
At 12:15 p.m., London-based journalist, writer and cultural analyst Michael Ignatieff will deliver the Robert L. Bernstein Lecture on the topic "Virtual War: Legal and Moral Quandaries." Ignatieff has written for the New York Times, the New Yorker and many other publications on political and human rights issues, and is the author of numerous books, including "The Warrior's Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience," "Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism," "The Needs of Strangers" and the biography "Isaiah Berlin: A Life." A family memoir he wrote called "The Russian Album" won Canada's Governor General Award and the Heinemann Prize of Britain's Royal Society of Literature in 1988. His novel "Scar Tissue" was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1993.
Following Ignatieff's talk, at 2 p.m., Orville H. Schell III, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, will moderate a panel discussion on the subject "Human Rights and the Media: Responsibilities, Opportunities and Cautionary Tales." In addition to Ignatieff and Gelber, panelists will include Carroll Bogert, director of communications at Human Rights Watch; Mary Kay Magistad, a news correspondent for National Public Radio; Susan Moeller, director of the Brandeis University Journalism Program and author of "Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sells Disease, Famine, War and Death"; freelance journalist David Rieff, author of "Bosnia and the Failure of the West" and co-editor of "War Crimes: What the Public Needs to Know"; and Ed Vulliamy, a correspondent for The Observer and author of "Seasons in Hell: Understanding Bosnia's War."
The recipients of 2000-2001 Bernstein Fellowships will be announced during a reception at 4 p.m.
Symposium events will take place at various locations at the Law School, 127 Wall St. For further information, call (203) 432-1729.
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