Reflections from the Participants

International Dialogue for Thought Leaders in Media: Journalism

Fetzer Institute, Kalamazoo, MI, June 12-15 2008

"I am inspired to use all this accumulated negative stuff, all this bad stuff that’s been happening around me the past 15 or so years, and to turn it into something creative and positive."

Dejan Anastasijevic, senior investigative reporter, VREME weekly, and freelance Balkan correspondent, Time Magazine.

"I’ve been inspired by a lot of individuals in the nonprofit sector…What Just Media is about is helping to more effectively tell those stories."

Henry Ansbacher, founder and executive director, Just Media. 

“I discovered this talent I probably inherited to be a mediator. Somebody was questioning, am I doing activism or journalism?  You’re doing pure journalism when you are trying to change things.”

Patrice Barrat, managing director, Article Z, and founder the NGO Bridge Initiative.

“I was a real journalism snob, and I thought unless you were in New York or Washington or running around a war zone you weren’t doing important news.”

Maud “Missy” Beelman, deputy managing editor, The Dallas Morning News. 

“It’s the electronic overload … People need electronic shepherds to haul them through the wilds of the digital world.”

Margaret “Peggy” Engel, director, Alicia Patterson Journalism Foundation, and managing editor, The Newseum. 

“Yeah, who is going to call out the racists? Who’s going to call out the misogynists and the bigots?”

Renee Ferguson, investigative reporter, NBC5 News (Chicago). 

 
“What really to me is courage is when you are true to your beliefs … and that’s an internal thing.  The world may say you are an idiot, but you say that I was true to what I believe in.”

Elliot Jaspin, freelance journalist and author, Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing.

 “It takes courage to break new ground—to go against the ‘easy way’ of the majority. And it also takes courage to rethink the way we do what we do—knowing our real motivation, our ethic and the moral values guiding us.”

Eric LeReste, senior producer, Canadian Public Television’s Enquête.

 “The traditional journalism paradigm does not allow you to go to people and get them personally invested in taking action.  There’s a level of engagement that you really can’t accomplish even with really good journalism.”

Michele McLellan, journalist and newsroom consultant. 

“We’re almost chained to our desks. We’re almost tied to the old way of thinking of things.”

Victor Merina, freelance writer and senior fellow, Institute for Justice and Journalism. 

 “The reason shark numbers are plummeting all around the world is because to some extent the negative portrayal of sharks in the media. So for someone like me who’s a conservationist, we try to convey to people that sharks are important and should be treated with respect.”

Chris Palmer, environmental and wildlife film producer and Distinguished Film Producer in Residence, American University. 

“When I looked for the Caribbean on the Internet, I would see only certain things ... tourism, reggae, some calypso. I just wanted to kind of add to that in whatever small way I could.”

Georgia Popplewell, managing director, Global Voices, and founder, Caribbean Free Radio. 

 “Here’s why we can’t be afraid: Fear cripples you, period. It cripples you personally as well as professionally.  It’s just a bad thing.”

Connie Schultz, columnist, Plain Dealer (Cleveland).

 “This village elder was telling me, ‘You know, I never felt that I was part of the town ‘til I heard the name of our place mentioned on the radio.’ That really struck me.”

Siok Sian Pek-Dorji, founder, The Center for Media, Democracy and Civic Education (Bhutan). 

 “Courage in journalism is often believing that what you do matters … even in the face of declining audiences, big stories that seem to face into obscurity all too quickly, and constant demands to do more with less.”

Michael Skoler, executive director, Center for Innovation in Journalism.

“Journalism to me is not a job, it is a commitment.”

Vu Thanh Thuy, CEO, Radio Saigon Houston, editor-in-chief, Saigon Weekly News.