FREE Grades 7-12: Journalism: Training the Global Watchdogs

Journalism for Social Development in Myanmar/Burma and Other Countries

Guest Speaker:

Peter Hiscocks, Journalist and Broadcasting Consultant

Peter Hiscocks has worked extensively around the world with broadcast journalists and private and state broadcasting organizations. A former journalist on a number of British national newspapers, he worked with the BBC for more than 21 years – from radio reporter to television executive – and has won a number of awards for his work in news and current affairs.

As senior broadcasting consultant for the Thomson Foundation – Britain’s oldest media training and development consultancy – he has worked in 32 countries from South America to China, from Eastern Europe to southern Africa. He produced a number of films with hill tribes in South East Asia and has specialized in the development of free speech in divided communities.

He supervised the first training initiative and needs assessment in Radio Television Serbia, Belgrade, following the NATO bombings, and was the first to train Iraqi television staff in democratic journalism after the invasion.

For the Democratic Voice of Burma, he trained undercover television journalists by smuggling them out of the country to Thailand. Their extraordinarily brave work during the 2007 uprising was recognized in the documentary film “Burma VJ”, nominated for an Oscar in 2010: http://burmavjmovie.com/.

Date: Monday, May 9, 2011 Time: 1:00 to 2:00 p.m.

About the film documentary Burma VJ

http://www.thomsonfoundation.org/2010/03/burma-vj-secret-training-mission-behind-film-blockbuster/#more-1602

International projects of the Thomson Foundation

http://www.thomsonfoundation.org/projects/about-our-projects/

Current developments in Myanmar/Burma

http://www.economist.com/node/18486051?story_id=18486051

Video interview with journalists covering Burma

http://www.hrw.org/en/burma-defenders

About Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democratic leader who spent 15 years under house arrest

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/08/aung-san-suu-kyi-women

Schools interested in participating in this FREE current events program, via distance learning, should contact John Ramicone at 216-916-6360 or john.ramicone@ideastream.org by May 5th.^.