13 December 2005
Rice Announces Effort To Bring International Journalists to U.S., December 13, 2005 (Murrow program to include seminars, meetings with Americans)
By Michael Jay Friedman
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- A new public-private partnership will enable up to 100 foreign journalists to study and examine U.S. journalistic practices, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced December 13.
The Edward R. Murrow Journalism Program will engage overseas media professionals with their American peers through seminars at six leading U.S. journalism schools, visits to state capitals and an International Symposium for Journalists, hosted by the Colorado-based, nonprofit Aspen Institute.
Rice said the program will emphasize the journalistic values -- "integrity and ethics and courage and social responsibility" -- practiced by Murrow, a leading broadcast journalist from 1935 to 1960, and head of the United States Information Agency from 1961 to 1963.
"We all know," Rice added, "that the bedrock pillar of a free society is a free press and that it is crucial for the foundation of any democracy."
Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes praised the Murrow Program for addressing the new challenges facing U.S. public diplomacy.
During the Cold War, Hughes said, the nation’s public diplomats worked to inject information into closed societies. Today, with information more readily available, there is a greater need to help foreign journalists hone their skills, and to afford them the opportunity to travel in the United States and meet individual Americans, she said.
Geoffrey Cowen, dean of the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication, a Murrow partner institution, echoed Hughes’ remarks, stressing the need for well-trained journalists in an era where, more than ever, people and nations need better understanding of other cultures.
Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson suggested that the Murrow Program successfully would weave together American interests and ideals in the fashion of the 1948–1951 U.S. Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II.
The State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), which administers the program, anticipates the arrival of the first Murrow Program participants in April 2006.
The Edward R. Murrow Journalism Program was developed by ECA as part of its International Visitor Leadership Program.
Partner institutions include the journalism schools at the universities of Oklahoma; Texas (Austin); Minnesota; North Carolina (Chapel Hill); Kentucky and Southern California. The Aspen Institute was founded in 1950 to foster enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue through seminars, policy programs, conferences and leadership development initiatives.
Additional information on the ECA International Visitor Leadership Program is available on the State Department Web site.
