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European Articles
By Stephen G Brown, (ENI)
Paralimni, Cyprus, 4 April 2008
Checkpoint into Northern Cyprus (Photo by Stephen G Brown, ENI)
The opening of a street crossing point in Nicosia, the divided capital of Cyprus, is a symbolic measure that could build trust between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, a meetingof European Christian journalists and communicators has heard.
"Now is the time for everyone to ensure that the breakdown of the 'wall' in the shopping centre of Nicosia will really be the first and right step towards peace," said Cyprus-born Salpy Eskidjian Weiderud, a policy advisor on peace and security issues at the meeting in Cyprus.
She was addressing members of the World Association for ChristianCommunication on 3 April, the day that Ledra Street in Nicosia was opened for the first time in decades.
Cyprus has been split into a Turkish Cypriot north and a Greek Cypriot south since 1974, when Turkey invaded the island, following a short-lived coup by Greek Cypriot supporters of a union with Greece. The division between the two parts runs through Nicosia.
Leading female power-brokers from around the world appealed Thursday, March 6, for a larger political role for women in solving conflicts and poverty.
( Ecumenical News International).
German Lutheran Bishop Margot Kässmann.
(Photo by Stephen Brown/ENI.)
Church leaders and journalists often have little idea of the pressures that each other face, according to German Lutheran Bishop Margot Kässmann, who has pleaded with the media and the Church to show mutual respect. .
"The fact that a newspaper needs a short sentence, or that radio stations have only a few minutes in which to report, often does not fit in with how we talk in church. A sermon lasts at least 15 minutes, and a theological lecture at least 45," the Lutheran bishop said in a 15 February speech to journalists at the Protestant Media Academy in Berlin.
By Lavinia Mohr, Deputy General Secretary and Director of Programmes, WACC
On 28 – 29 January 2008 twenty prominent female journalists from the Middle East, Turkey and Austria, representing a broad range of media, took part in a Media Training Seminar on Media Monitoring at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, organised by Austria’s Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs. They debated questions such as how the media could contribute to changing stereotypes and prejudices and consequently to mitigating conflicts. The discussions focussed also on the presence of women in the media environment and the coverage of women in the media.
Bad Honnef, Germany - Is there a hierarchy in the quality of methodologies used for evaluating media projects and programmes? Is there one ‘most highly recommended’ tool? Do all tools arrive at the same end? Is it even possible to perform an impact evaluation of media development projects?
3WE’s unique monitoring project has, since 1989-90, regularly monitored the quantity of international programming on the UK's mainstream TV channels (BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, C4 and C5). These are the channels which have public service obligations and which together still retain 80% of all TV audiences.
This report examines the output of factual international programmes by the public service broadcasters during 2005, the year of Make Poverty History and the BBC’s Africa season. We have again commissioned Professor Steven Barnett of the University of Westminster to produce the research, with funding from DFID.
Previous research reports include ‘The World on the Box’, on 2003; and ‘Losing Reality’, on 2000-01.
Milja Radovic
The image of women in Serbian media during the Milosevic and post-Milosevic era is discussed in the following article. It includes the notorious role of TV Pink and its cultural impact on society in the 1990s, on print media dealing with problems such as trafficking, and the transition period, changes and challenges.
Trust or distrust? From this day onward that will be the theme to occupy our minds.
Holland voted against the European Constitution. France did already last Sunday. Their votes were very different, as far as I experienced them. As a Dutch philosopher and theologian of communication, I am living in the “capital of Europe”, which is not as many people may believe Brussels, but which (according to us) Strasbourg. Strasbourg is the place where you feel the necessity of a strong and cooperating Europe. During the nationality of last century the town changed several times. The Nazi-occupation during the Second World War created trauma’s which are still palpable. But for most voters, in France as in Holland, this painful and living history seems to have passed away. In any case, it has not been able to motivate them for a positive vote. What has happened? How should I, being an expatriated Dutchman, understand this French rejection?
Sean Hawkey
As mopeds were racing past religious architecture and ruins in Rome, Church webmasters and webpastors from all over Europe met for the 10th European Christian Internet Conference, ECIC X, to exchange experiences and celebrate the rapid progress of their work as it blazes stylishly past the slowing traffic of traditional church. For religious website managers, just as for Roman moped riders, it is quite a thrilling ride.
Jörg Becker
‘If Turkey joins, will God and Allah be included in the constitution?’ This question was put by the magazine Spektrum in the heading of an article about the impending decision, in early December 2004, by the EU Commission on whether to initiate accession negotiations with Turkey. This is an example of provocative journalism: a completely bizarre claim launched in the public domain only to be then attacked all the more vigorously.