Media

Geneva -- Teaching journalists to investigate is all very well. What we really need are more news organizations willing to print the truth, and innovative ways of using what we already know.

So what exactly should you expect from a Global Investigative Journalism Conference (GIJC) on 22-25 April in Geneva, home of a particularly sycophantic kind of reporting in a country whose newspapers largely keep to the political line of the parties that support them?

The move by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to support the media by stimulating a new generation of readers through  free newspaper subscriptions to teenagers  is an excellent initiative. It is also one which the Swiss authorities - and the international agencies in Geneva - should consider. Unless they’re reading the free web newssites such as the BBC, Christian Science Monitor or Global Post, young people simply cannot rely on U-tube, the Daily Show or 160-character SMS items alone as reliable information sources about their society and world events. There needs to be far more creative thinking of how to develop new readership, whether in print, broadcasting or new media, that is both critical and discerning. Just handing out subscriptions will not be enough. We need to get to kids even younger.

Geneva -- The Media21 Global Journalism Network is holding its tenth human rights' journalism workshop in parallel with the United Nations Human Rights Council's periodic review in Geneva. The nearly two-week workshop is designed to help broaden understanding of human rights principles among experienced editors and journalists worldwide. Developed in conjunction with the United Nations Office for Human Rights , World Organization Against Torture (WOAT/OMCT) , Tracking Justice Always (TRIAL) and Human Rights Watch , the workshop not only allows journalists to cover the Council for domestic media in their own countries but also to interact with different players, such as UN agencies, NGOs and diplomats, active in the field of human rights.

GENEVA -- There is rising concern that IRIN, a unique information project of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), may be in for some serious financial cutbacks or even closure. Given estimated shortfalls of up to 30 million dollars, OCHA is currently evaluating IRIN to see whether the project should be nixed, or at least heavily slashed. When aid agencies need to save money, information initiatives are usually the first to go. Officially, OCHA knows nothing, with one representative informally commenting that it was no more than a "storm in a teacup."

According to several inside sources, however, there is a very realistic possibility that IRIN, which has been providing informed coverage and analysis by specialist reporters of humanitarian situations in Africa, parts of Asia and the Middle East for well over a decade, may have its funding curtailed.  And this despite the fact that IRIN journalists are often the only ones to be reporting on a regular basis from hazardous locations such as Somalia. IRIN, which also produces news videos, documentary films and photos, some of them of exceptional quality, has proved an increasingly utilized information resource for local and international media, the humanitarian community and the public-at-large.