journalists

One year ago, Tunisian president Zine el Abidine ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia, resigned his position, and Tunisia embarked upon its transition to a new political structure. The “Arab Spring,” as it came to be called, has inspired many academics, development professionals, and others to draw comparisons to the events in Eastern Europe that roughly 20 years ago resulted in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

In honor of International Anti-Corruption Day, IREX staff Erin Murrock shares insight on how journalists are combating corruption. 

I recently witnessed/observed first-hand the challenges facing media reform in Serbia, and indeed, in most of the countries where IREX works.

Jocelyn Grange, a media consultant working for IREX in Chad, writes about two community radio stations and the dedicated journalists who keep them running in spite of limited resources.  

From the comfort of a multi-platform, 24/7 information world, it is worth considering what people are doing to get any news out at all in places such as Moundou and Sarh, Chad. Radio Kar Ruba in

Forty-three years ago, IREX was created to help advance exchanges, not just of people, but of ideas. As we celebrate IREX’s founding, we honor its original charge by continuing to bring people together, to link institutions both within and across countries and regions, and to host events where the latest thinking and research is shared with the world.

From May 1 to 3, for the first time, the United States hosted World Press Freedom Day, an event inspired by African journalists. Every day around the globe free expression is under threat. For the champions of a free media, the dates, places and people may change but not the objective. Twenty years ago it was the Soviet Union’s dictatorship and South Africa’s apartheid that was disintegrating; today another revolution is transforming the Middle East.

As we approach World Press Freedom Day on May 3 and consider its theme of 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers, our thoughts naturally turn to the Middle East. Over the last four months, citizens there took to the streets to demand change. We saw two seemingly entrenched regimes toppled. We see several others on the edge of collapse. And we see how news and information has broken free of the control of these regimes.

I recently participated in a roundtable, "Old and New Media in Russia Today," at the Annual Convention of the Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS). The conference brings together political science, history, language, humanities, and other scholars and practitioners in the areas of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies from around the world.

If anyone with a camera, computer, or blog can be considered a journalist, does it make sense for laws to create special protections for journalists? Or if a journalist must be someone employed by a media organization, someone who earns a regular salary and is specifically tasked with collecting and disseminating news and information, does it make sense to extend special legal protections only to that group? The question has been raised most recently in Iraq, South Africa and Turkey.