Participants in the East-West Center's inaugural Pakistan-U.S. Journalists Exchange

HONOLULU (April 11, 2011) — Participants in the East-West Center’s inaugural Pakistan-U.S. Journalists Exchange began their fellowship in Honolulu last week with lively discussions on the complex U.S.-Pakistan relationship and issues facing the media in both countries.

Over the weekend, the Pakistani participants left for their tour to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Columbia, Missouri, while the Americans departed for Islamabad and Lahore, Pakistan.

Follow the East-West Center’s Facebook and Twitter accounts for posts and news articles from the participants.

Journalists from the program will meet again in Honolulu to discuss their travel findings, and will be participating in a public panel discussion on U.S. engagement in Pakistan on April 21. Continue Reading »

When six Japanese journalists and six American journalists started their East-West Center media exchange program last month, they had no idea that a once-in-a-millennium earthquake and tsunami would devastate Japan — right in the middle of their study tours.

Japanese journalists met with NeighborWorks to discuss earthquake building codes in California.

The disasters gave participants in the Japan-U.S. Journalists Exchange new perspectives on the people and cultures of the two countries that the journalists likely would not have experienced otherwise.

The Americans flew out of Tokyo en route to Okinawa only three hours before the earthquake hit. Their next stop was Hiroshima, where survivors of the atom bomb dropped there during World War II offered unique insights into radiation leaks from the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex. Meanwhile, the Japanese participants, including one from Sendai, were traveling in Austin, Texas. At first they planned to return to Japan immediately but then decided to finish the program in America after confirming their families were safe. Continue Reading »

HONOLULU (March 15, 2011) – A variety of East-West Center specialists are available as expert news sources for context on the disaster crisis in Japan. Click on the name of a specialist for bio and contact details.

For assistance in arranging interviews with any of these sources, contact EWC Media Relations Specialist Derek Ferrar at +1 (808) 944-7204, or ferrard@eastwestcenter.org.

Continue Reading »

The Online News Association (ONA) held its first Parachute Training in 2011 at the East-West Center. Experts provided digital training for 125 journalists and educators on Jan. 21-22. Topics included social media, (mostly) free tools, data visualization, mobile, video and more. For a look at the event see Storify post and video created by participants after the conference. Presenter Kwan Booth links to some of the presentations on his House of Local website.

Tibetan street vendor Zanta is the subject of Jocelyn Ford’s new film. Photo: zantathefilm.com

Jefferson Fellowship alumna Jocelyn Ford is completing a documentary about a widowed Tibetan street vendor in Beijing struggling to educate her son against the wishes of her father-in-law. Ford, who has been working on the project for four years, writes that the film is the first documentary about a Tibetan migrating to a Han Chinese city, and the first to probe gender discrimination in the Tibetan community.

“Back when I was a daily-news journalist, I never imagined I’d find a story worth following for so long,” writes Ford, a former bureau chief for public radio’s Marketplace in Beijing and Tokyo who is now a freelance correspondent based in Beijing. “But Zanta is truly an extraordinary woman, facing extraordinary challenges as a female and a minority in China.  Her story grapples with many of the big questions in life that we all face. More importantly, her story deserves to be told because, though the future of Tibet is often debated, the voices of people like Zanta are not heard.”

Ford, who participated in the Fall 2006 Jefferson Fellowship, has finished filming and is currently seeking “crowdsource” funding online through May 3 to pay for editing. Click here to find out more.

The 2,000-plus journalists who are alumni of East-West Center media programs include some of the most talented, successful and interesting journalists in the United States, Asia and the Pacific islands. Here’s a look at some of their recent accomplishments. Please send your new projects, promotions, achievements and awards to Susan Kreifels, East-West Center Media Programs Manager, at kreifels@eastwestcenter.org.

Harry Bhaskara (Fall 2001 Jefferson Fellow)  and his family temporarily evacuated from their home in January after it was inundated by flooding in Queensland, Australia. Bhaskara left The Jakarta Post to move to Brisbane, where he is a sub-editor at Pagemasters, a global provider of design, editorial and listings services to the newspaper and magazine industry.

Continue Reading »

A variety of ways are available for East-West Center media program alumni and other interested journalists to connect with each other online.

• If you are an EWC program alum, join the EWC Alumni Online Community. It will give you access to a private directory of several thousand participating EWC alumni from all over the world and all walks of life, fully searchable by location, profession, etc. An excellent resource for finding sources!
• You can also join the international EWC Media Alumni Chapter.
  
• On Facebook:
  • “Like” the main East-West Center Facebook page and alumni page for updates on EWC programs, news, publications and much more.
  • Friend EWC Media Relations Specialist Derek Ferrar at EWC Press. He’ll keep you posted on news and announcements of special interest to journalism program participants.
• On Twitter: EastWestCenter
  
• On LinkedIn: East-West Center

See you online!