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Returning to China: Inspired by Youth Voices September 16, 2011 by W. Robert Pearson Thirty years ago, I arrived in China as a young American diplomat after the normalization of relations between the two countries. This summer, I returned to China to witness the vast changes that have taken place. I had the opportunity to attend the expansion ceremony for IREX’s China Student Journalism Program and the second annual journalism camp held in the remote northwestern province of Gansu. Walking into an auditorium filled with Chinese and American youth, I could feel the energy and excitement in the room. Students and their teachers were proud of the newspapers displayed on the walls of this large auditorium. Their eagerness and commitment to serving as voices for their peers and community were inspiring.	Local Online Media in Serbia Gains an Audience and Trust September 2, 2011 by Djordje Nikolic In a little over a year, Southern News, a start up regional news website from South Serbia supported by IREX, gained the trust of its readers, respect from its journalism colleagues, and 80,000 unique visitors a month.
Tunisian Media Experience a Chance to Change August 25, 2011 by Maggie McDonough While Tunisia’s revolution continues to have different meanings for different constituencies, perhaps in nowhere is the transformation more profoundly felt than in the media sector. After decades of extreme censorship, and in some cases outright brutality directed against journalists and editors, and more recently bloggers, who circumvented the government line, media representatives now feel the fear and intimidation lifting.	Q&A: Media as an Outlet for Youth August 12, 2011 by Rachel Surkin As part of United Nations' International Year of Youth, I asked our Chief of Party for the Azerbaijan New Media Project Angela Nicoara about her experience with youth and their involvement in media. Angela says that media tools and skills can help youth have an outlet to affect their own communities and futures in Azerbaijan and throughout the world. Here are more of Angela's answers.
Television Program Links Isolated Serbian Farming Communities in Kosovo August 10, 2011 by Branislav Krstic and Andrew Clayton Vojislav Stojanovic says the harvest in central Kosovo should be good this year. As he stands in his wheat field in Caglavica with a reporter from the new “Agrar” TV show, he rubs the grains between his fingers and tastes them, as generations of farmers have done before him, to judge when they should begin harvesting. “Its good, full of flavor,” he says. “But it is still damp, maybe another five or six days.”	Hard Work Online Pays Off in Azerbaijan July 21, 2011 by Angela Nicoara On behalf of IREX, I am pleased to announce that 22 diligent Azerbaijani students and their mentors won netbooks and flipcameras in a recent national contest for the ‘Best Research Essays Using Internet.' One hundred and sixty nine candidates entered from all over the country, notably Sumgait, Guba, Shirvan, Imishli, Ganja, Gazakh, Sheki, Zagatala, Ismayilli and Mingachevir. Plagiarism was penalised, with positive results.
Assisting Small TV Stations That Make a Big Difference July 19, 2011 A small television station in Batumi, Georgia gets a boost from its partners at a local station in Roanoke, VA via the Georgian Media Partnership Program.	Iraq: Mediating Gender in the Digital Age July 19, 2011 by Namo Abdulla Like many women hungry for better representation in the Middle East, 22-year-old Dina Najem is finding her voice through social media tools, which she is actively using to promote women rights in Iraq’s largely patriarchal and tribal society.
Somali Youth Spreads the Word About Peace July 15, 2011 by Bridget Kimball Huda Qalib tears up when she hears the stories of clan violence. People “fight and kill each other over small things,” she says. “I wondered what they were thinking at the time.” Together with a team of other activists, the 23-year-old aspiring media professional is organizing a series of community conversations throughout Somaliland to bring together people from all walks of life to discuss sources of and solutions to clan-related conflict. Conversations are prompted by viewings of media spots which have been produced by the youth activists, followed by youth-facilitated discussions on the issues raised in the media spots. The events are being carried out through IREX’s Uniting Communities to Mitigate Conflict (UCMC) program.	To Make a Better World: IREX Then & Now June 30, 2011 by W. Robert Pearson Forty-three years ago today, 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.