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Do We Censor News So Not to Insult? |
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By Matthew Streib on
12/15/2008 6:47 PM
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For the last two hours, we broke into small-group discussions on a variety of topics. My groups was “Covering Religion: Where to Draw the Line?” The topic dealt with whether religion is an appropriate subject for parody or satire, with the noted example of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad scandal, and how instances of disrespect for religion should be handled in the media. It was a difficult discussion with few answers.
Other members of the group were:
Antonio Barnhardt, senior assignment editor of Fox News, Washington D.C.
Khaled Hamza, we editor of Ikhwanweb
Yasmin Ghahremani, a freelance journalist
Maria Ebrahimji, producer and reporter for The Institute for Inter-religious Dialogue
Sam Pickens, deputy director of Aga Khan Development Network Communicatons
Joyce Barnathan, president of ICFJ
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The Fight Over the Future of Turkey |
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By Matthew Streib on
12/15/2008 3:29 PM
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In the first in-depth discussion on religion and politics, the conference moved on to the environment in our host country, Turkey, led by Faik Balut and Emre Akoz, two long-standing Turkish journalists.
Balut started out with trying to shatter misconceptions about Turkish secularism, although notions that don’t necessarily come from the West. He said that in the Arab world, secularism is seen as a vestige of colonialism, a political view thrust upon it by colonial forces that have no idea how their culture functions. Because of that, many in the Arab world think Turkey is the same, which is totally untrue.
“Journalists in the Arab countries believe that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk came to the country and cut all links with Arab countries and Islam, but that is not true. In 839, secularism was adopted in the state,” he said, meaning that secularism has been part of Turkey for more than a millennium, almost a thousand years before Ame ...
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Setting the Stage: Lazy Journalists and Bad Experts |
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By Matthew Streib on
12/15/2008 1:59 PM
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The conference began with a short lecture by Stephen Franklin, a former Chicago Tribune reporter, who attended a similar conference in 2005 called "Bridging the Gap: Misunderstandings and Misinformation in the Arab and U.S. Media," and gave a brief review about what he learned there.
He brought up a few major points that helped set the stage for the conference.
First, he mentioned that when reporting on religious leaders, it’s important that they be held to the same accountability standards as any other leader, i.e. their statements need to be examined for intent and impact, and compared with other sources. While fleeting in his speech, I think this is a very important criticism. Too often, in my opinion, reporters who do not know a lot about religion scratch the surface of religious issues, and will let certain religious people get away with saying whatever they want, the reporter not knowing or caring that there is another s ...
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