I’m a foreign correspondent and journalism teacher-trainer now based in southern Africa. Over the past 20 years, I’ve reported from 30 countries, mostly across post-Communist Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union. I was first based in Hungary, then the United Nations, then in Slovakia, and today, in Lesotho – reporting for the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, Global Post, Harvard’s Nieman Reports, and many others. I’m currently producing a documentary film on racial healing in post-Apartheid South Africa, called The Clubhouse.
Meanwhile, over the past decade, I’ve also taught several thousand student-journalists and professional journalists – on four continents. My teaching career began in New York City, where I was the George Polk Journalist-in-Residence at Long Island University and also served as faculty adviser to the student newspaper. Today, though, my teaching and training clients are in Asia, Europe and Africa.
In Hong Kong, I’m a five-time Visiting Scholar at Hong Kong Baptist University, where I teach Minority and Immigrant Reporting within HKBU’s International Journalism program. In Prague, I’m the Senior Journalism Trainer of a unique, pound-the-pavement Foreign Correspondence Course; since January 2007, I’ve guided 21 groups of participants toward their first piece of international reporting. And in HIV-afflicted Lesotho, my home-base since 2011, I train journalists to raise awareness about the nation’s health crisis through Health Journalism.
Indeed, in Lesotho, a country that suffers the world’s third-highest rate of HIV infection yet lacks any real journalism education or professional training, I’ve: led free HIV-journalism workshops for underprivileged Basotho youth at Kick4Life, a football-and-HIV-awareness organization; trained Basotho journalists in how to report on Gender-Based Violence in a more serious, responsible way (sponsored by the U.S. Embassy); created, pro bono, the National University of Lesotho’s “Health Journalism Club,” then taught reporting skills to 10 dedicated student-journalists; and, most recently, I steered most important training of my career: coaching journalists in how to explore the most sensitive of all anti-HIV strategies – Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision. That two-month training was sponsored by Jhpiego, a global group affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. Meanwhile, for UNICEF-Lesotho, I also wrote three fundraising proposals on three vital issues here: immunizations, malnutrition and mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
Today, in addition to my feature documentary, I also work as a communications consultant in Lesotho, having recently done consultancies for World Vision, on Maternal Child Health; for Columbia University’s global HIV organization, ICAP; and soon for the World Bank, in conjunction with the Lesotho Ministry of Health. (But more on that later…)
For a full CV, please contact me at mjjordan23@earthlink.net.
http://advocacynet.org/wordpress-mu/tbottman/2010/05/28/human-rights-journalists-needed-desperately-in-central-europe/
I just came across a fascinating blog post by award-winning reporter and journalism professor Michael J. Jordan, currently based in Slovakia. His lengthy list of accomplishments includes developing trainings for European Roma journalists.
From his long-term experience in journalism and his discussions with reporters in Central and Eastern Europe, Jordan concludes that the need for human rights journalism is pressing. In his recent meeting with the representatives from Slovak media, Jordan observed:
The assembled reporters… described how tough it can be to make the case to editors for why to approach stories with greater sensitivity, or also pursue positive Roma stories, or report more critically about far-right demonstrations. Or even why the majority should care about the state of its Roma minority – as a “litmus test” for Slovak democracy, values and respect for human rights.
Jordan wonders “out loud” what “fair and balanced” reporting on the Roma issues should look like. The local human rights journalists present explain:
The hatred has been planted so deep, there’s no space for high-minded, Western-liberal, even-handedness in broadcasting. The Roma are so beaten down by society’s perception of them, many have themselves developed low esteem for their own identity and peoplehood.
The information that follows is golden for me and others working with community-based Roma media advocacy groups. Jordan explains that human rights journalism is needed primarily for “the Roma themselves: to remind them of their humanity.”
Additionally, he explains, “the second target audience was equally striking: the ordinary (majority citizens) genuinely curious about Roma culture, and those who in fact have some warm feelings for the Roma – or, at least for their Roma neighbor or colleague, past or present.”
My AP fellowship’s goals match just that. In my work I aim to deliver positive portrayals of the Roma to correct the deeply entrenched, damaging stereotypes so prevalent in European societies. Jordan’s piece helps shed more light on yet another aspect of why this type of reporting is needed. This work is needed to boost the Roma community’s self-image and morale, which will in turn strengthen the Roma emancipation movement. Pro-Roma press coverage may also help attract more allies from the majority community to advocate for social change. Profound stuff.