Andreu Claret, Executive Director of the Anna Lindh Foundation, Speaks Monday in Alexandria

In a study of perceptions on the Mediterranean's Northern and Southeastern shores, the Anna Lindh Foundation found that 66 percent of people polled on the Mediterranean's Southestern shore could not recall any media that changed their perception of Europe in a positive way. Furthermore, 79 percent of Europeans polled could not name a media source that changed their perception of the Muslim South in a positive way.

With such a dramatic divide in perceptions, many suggest more support for media freedom and work to build the capacity of journalists to report across cultures. These are both goals shared by the Anna Lindh Foundation, in alliance with collaborating organizations such as the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. "Freedom is a prerequisite for reporting across cultures," Claret said on Monday at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. "Without it, it's reporting across barriers."

Claret said he believes in the need to increase the capacity of journalists to report across cultures, which begins with gaining knowledge of the other; of complexity. "Without knowledge, there is no way to report across cultures." That search for knowledge also involves the difficult exercise of confronting one's own, personal tensions...tensions Claret said should be faced with humility. Claret offered a quotation from the British author Lawrence Durrell's tetralogy of novels, The Alexandria Quartet:

• 'There is no other. There is only oneself facing forever the problem of oneself's discovery.'

International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) | Advancing Quality Journalism Worldwide Our Work Middle East & North Africa Freedom of Expression in the Middle East About the Conference

International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) | Advancing Quality Journalism Worldwide Our Work Middle East & North Africa Freedom of Expression in the Middle East About the Conference

Reflections on digital tools

My Journey In the Digital Age: Loving, Fearing Twitter

A study that was recently published shows that teens and tweens (age 11-13, I think) in the United States spend about 7 hours a day online or using social media. I think this is a powerful example of the nature of the “digital age”. It's everywhere. The rise of Twitter, Facebook, and Online news coincides with the decline of print newspapers, a crisis in publishing, and shifting nature of advertising.

The experience of news and entertainment is becoming all-digitized. From News feeds, to Satellite Radio to Netflix, the tools of the digital age are giving us the ability, as has been said many times, to create our own news and entertainment realities. This has given me a lot to think about.

This course has also given me a great opportunity to reflect on some of the trends and issues in digital media, such as popular new tools.

The things I learned about for the first time are: RSS, GoogleMaps, and how to Tweet. It was easy. I never expected to use Twitter, but I joined Twitter and I instantly had several followers; people listening to my messages sent out into the digital world. It is a great feeling. For me, it also comes with the fear of not saying something meaningful. In a more positive light, this course has helped me to start to notice how the media organizations I work with are using tools like RSS feeds, blogs, and social media. This course has given me more tools (and knowledge) for better collaborating with my colleagues.

In this course, the most useful tool for me to learn about was GoogleMaps. I love the way that GoogleMaps lets people illustrate their own personal experiences (and values) related to physical spaces and locations. I think this tool is most interesting to me because it is not self-referential. It does not lead to more digital worlds, but outside...out into the smelly, fresh, fetid, stormy, and sunny air of the real world!

User Comments on News Media Sites

User comments are a controversial subject for news organizations transitioning to online. Enabling comment functions increases hits, but the matter of whether it increases the quality of journalism is debatable. Unidentified and anonymous commenters can't be held accountable for what they write, whereas journalists are held to that standard. Extremely inflammatory comments often go off topic and distract from the real news story. Paid journalists and citizen commenters often produce very different content, but some might argue that their information and/or voices are given equal visibility on a site with comment-enabled news stories.

Making sure comments don't turn into a "cesspool", as one critic says, can be a big challenge. We've all seen it happen. If speech in comments isn't protected by the 1st Amendment, cracking down on these key-happy commenters is not limiting freedom of speech, it's just maintaining the integrity of a news site. Sites that offer "pull down" viewing of the comments (in which you have to click to view comments) have found a way to partly address concerns related to comments, as have sites that monitor comments. Here is an excellent column about dealing with reader comments from Elizabeth Cook, the editor of the Salisbury Post. The Salisbury Post is an award-winning newspaper serving Salisbury and Rowan County in North Carolina. The paper also has a strong online presence and is moving into the digital age.

Example of a digitally modified image

From Flickr Creative Commons

Here is a modified image that I found on Flickr. I don't have any photo editing software, so I don't normally modify images. I have always been a fan of photography, and for some reason modifying the original seems like cheating to me. I definitely don't think that journalists should modify images.

Don't Get Lost in Links

Once spurned practice gains intractable foothold.

The standard use of links in online news was slow to gain traction with major news outlets, but has now become part of almost every major breaking news story. Information providers have learned to take advantage of the power of links, using them as veritable click-able gateways into infinitesimal universes of knowledge. Journalistic linking practices were developed that defined some ethics of linking. Some of these standards are commonly referred to when journalists vet a link for relevance:

• Make sure links are relevant
• Update links to make sure they are not "dead ends."
• Use links with discretion; and make sure information at the end of the link adds to the story.

But has linking gotten out of control?

Here are three different linking practices:

1. The "contextual" link.

Let's look at this story from the New York Times: U.S. and Russia Near Deal to Cut Nuclear Arsenals

This story provides a link to "Russia", which links to an entire dossier of information and articles about Russia. This meets the three standards of linking and journalistic integrity.

2. "Under-linking"

While this article from The Budapest Sun has lots of information about cultural events in Budapest for Christmas, there are no links to the relevant places to provide added intrigue. Only one link to the event page itself is listed at the bottom. If readers are interested in learning more about any of the event performers or venues, they have to inevitably do a whole new search using a search engine. The more steps it takes to get to the real information, the more likely it is that readers will drop off along the way.

3. "Over-linking"

Here is a nice article about the phenomenon of "over-linking" from, who else, Wikipedia!

I have to wholeheartedly agree with this article about the negligence of linking to the definition of a word itself. Here is a very clear example. See how I used that link to guide the reader to the definition of "example" instead of an ACTUAL example? This kind of meta-embedding of meaning through the reckless overuse of links drives me absolutely crazy. Unless it is a basic English lesson, don't link to definitions of words themselves! You click-happy linkers are clogging up the cybersphere.