Session 4 – Monday morning

Session: Future Wars?

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Future Wars?

How do journalists prepare for future wars and conflicts where journalists increasingly are being seen – and targeted – as the enemy?

Are all future wars going to be covered second hand? What about the local journalists, as in Iraq, who are providing the video with no recognition – and are being killed and exiled as a result?

Hostage-taking and other kidnapping have emerged as a major issue; humanitarian disasters too, where it is increasingly life-threatening even to try to get there, as in Darfur.

What is the news organization’s “duty of care” and are they living up to their responsibilities to train and equip their news teams adequately?

They may be open to law suits if they don’t as families become more litigious, e.g. the law suit against Knight Ridder over the untrained journalist murdered in Guatemala. 

What about the people who may or not be “real” journalists – where do the bloggers fit in as they are targeted because of the views they express?

Will the blogosphere become as dangerous as the physical world?

INSI’s newly-published Global Inquiry into journalist deaths over the last 10 years – the most comprehensive review ever – will set the scene and look at its recommendations for action by the international community (UN Resolution 1738 on impunity and journalists in conflict), news organizations, armies, and individual journalists.

Moderator – David Marash – Presenter, Al Jazeera English

Panelists

1. Rodney Pinder – director of International News Safety Institute.
2. Tayseer Allouni – Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Madrid and was previously the bureau chief in Kabul, Afghanistan.
3. Aidan White – Aidan White is the General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists.
4. Frank Smyth – Washington representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists

Biographies

undefinedDave Marash – Presenter, Al Jazeera English
Dave Marash joined Al Jazeera English from the ABC News’ Nightline where from 1989 he was an award-winning correspondent covering global as well as US domestic stories. Marash’s coverage of world events has been highly acclaimed, winning him an Emmy Award in 1994 for coverage of the war in Bosnia, in 1996 for coverage of the domestic terrorism in Oklahoma City, in 1997 for covering the explosion of TWA flight 800 off the coast of Long Island and an Emmy Award nomination in 2005 for coverage of the effects of the Asian tsunami in Sri Lanka. He was also been awarded the Du Pont Award and Global Health Award in 2000 for a three part series of Nightline programmes on the effects of AIDS in Zimbabwe. He was also awarded the Overseas Press Club Award for his radio reports of the 1972 Black September hostage killings at the Munich Olympic Games.
undefinedTayseer Allouni – Al Jazeera Madrid Bureau Chief
Tayseer Allouni started his career as an interpreter and then a producer with for the Spanish Press Agency EFE. He worked with the Institute of Peace and Conflict at the University of Granada of which he is still a member. Allouni joined Al Jazeera in 1999 as a correspondent in Afghanistan and then became its Kabul bureau chief. At times during the war, he was the only reporter on the ground whose pictures and footage were shown across the world. His exclusive interview with Osama bin Laden following September 11, 2001, caused him later to be accused of collaborating with al-Qaeda resulting in his being sentenced in September 2005 to seven years’ imprisonment.
undefinedAidan White – General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists
Aidan White was born in Ireland, but educated in the United Kingdom where he learned his trade as a journalist. He joined the International Federation of Journalists as General Secretary from The Guardian in 1987. Today he campaigns for the rights of journalists and has written extensively on the social and professional conditions of journalism. His most recent publications include Journalism, Civil Liberties and the War on Terror and Making a World of Difference: Global Unions at Work. He has promoted industry co-operation on safety and security issues and is a founder of the International News Safety institute. Under his leadership the IFJ has grown into the largest organisation of journalists in the world representing more that 500,000 journalists in 117 countries.

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