PR--Agahi Award Winners Discuss Media Ethics with a Visiting American Academician

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Agahi Award Winners Discuss Media Ethics with a Visiting American
Academician

Professor Sherry Ricchiardi shares her views on the importance of "Media
Ethics" for Pakistani media.


Islamabad, PK – 17 May 2012 –* A "TALK" was held between Professor Sherry
Ricchiardi and the AGAHI Award Winners on Media Ethics. Professor Sherry
Ricchiardi is a senior writer for American Journalism Review (AJR)
specializing in international issues, and a Professor at the Indiana
University School of Journalism. She has won many awards and has conducted
various workshops and trained journalists all around the globe. Dr. Sherry
is currently on her week-long visit to Pakistan and had the first media
interaction with the AGAHI Award winning Journalists from all over Pakistan.

Prof. Sherry Ricchiardi in her talk discussed Media Ethics and the
importance of code of conduct in Journalism by sharing examples from her
experience. A follow up discussion, with an interactive session with the
Agahi Award Winners/Participants was also held. Journalists in Pakistan are
working in one of the most challenging environment and keeping media ethics
intact makes them professionals in their field.

Puruesh Chaudhary, Ambassador to Pakistan by the Center for International
Media Ethics (CIME) and President AGAHI welcomed the participants and
Professor Sherry Ricchiardi. She commenced the talk with a brief
introduction of the AGAHI initiative and its goals and objectives.

Idrees Bakhtiar, senior Journalist with Herald (winner of AGAHI Award for
Business and Economic issues) spoke about Media Ethics by elaborating the
role of ethics in journalism. "Journalists have responsibility towards
society by providing information in a truthful, objective and a balanced
form, while respecting the privacy and importance of secrecy of issues
related to National Security" said Bakhtiar.

Speaking on the occasion, Safdar Hayat Khan, President, Tribal Union of
Journalists from FATA said, that the media stakeholders in Pakistan need to
reconsider the role of the media in Pakistani society and come up with a
collective ethics and compliance code for journalists from the print and
electronic media. Such measures will not only bring a positive change to
Pakistani society but also strengthen the media itself and bring more
institutional credibility.

Hamid Mir, winner of the Agahi Award's People Choice for the Journalist of
the Year 2012 said, "the biggest issues journalists' are facing is the
security issue, security for life and security of job".

Matiullah Achackzai, winner of the Agahi Award for Photojournalist from
Chaman, Baluchistan said that it is important to have such interactions,
especially journalists from the far flung areas of Baluchistan.

The session was concluded with a note of thank to the participants and a
presentation of a shield to Professor Sherry Ricchiardi given by Amir
Jahangir, CEO Mishal Pakistan and Young Global Leader, World Economic
Forum. Jahangir thanked Prof. Ricchiardi for taking time out for her first
media interaction with the Agahi Award winners.

Established in 2003, Mishal Pakistan has been engaged with some of the most
dynamic organizations, including media enterprises and global development
agencies helping them develop their communication strategies and solutions
for better understanding and creating synergies with their concerned
stakeholders. In March this year Mishal launched the first ever journalists
awards in the country. Sixteen journalists from the journalistic community
won the AGAHI Awards in different categories across print, television,
radio and internet media. The Agahi Awards received enthusiastic response
from the journalists across Pakistan.

As a Country Partner Institute of the Center of Global Competition and
Performance, World Economic Forum, Mishal is at the forefront of devising
and delivering communication solutions for a cross-section of stakeholders
and is actively pursuing and supporting initiatives to improve the state of
media and journalism in Pakistan.

Mishal has undertaken the task to build the capacity of press cubs and
journalist associations in Pakistan by creating a learning platform for the
media and journalists across Pakistan. The initiative will build the
capacity through interactive workshops, conferences, collaborative thinking
and knowledge sharing. It is also focusing on improving the competitiveness
of the media by creating competition amongst the various verticals through
media and journalism awards for the professionals in the field of
communications.

Professor Sherry Ricchiardi-Folwell is an award winning journalist. She has
trained journalists around the world, including Pakistan, Yemen, Indonesia,
China and Kyrgyzstan. She worked in Pakistan in May-June 2012 and has
conducted workshops for Pakistani journalists for the International Center
for Journalists in Washington, D.C. She has developed online courses and
media manuals for ICFJ to serve media in Latin America, Iran, Armenia,
Egypt, and Turkey.

Ricchiardi is a senior writer for American Journalism Review (AJR),
specializing in international issues, and a professor at the Indiana
University School of Journalism. She has written stories for AJR on media
coverage of conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, interviewing
dozens of correspondents on assignment there. She serves on the advisory
committee of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia
University and has conducted safety trainings for media working in conflict
zones.

Ricchiardi was an investigative reporter and Sunday magazine writer for the
Des Moines Register, the largest, newspaper in lowa. She later became city
editor for the Columbia Missourian, a newspaper produced at the University
Of Missouri School Of Journalism, her alma mater. She received her Ph.D. in
1986 from lowa State University.

She has won the top National Press Club award for press criticism twice,
including stories about violence against journalism in the West Bank,
Afghanistan and Iraq. She has won numerous awards for excellence in
teaching at Indiana University. Her stories from the frontlines of the
Balkan conflict appeared in several American publications, including Miami
Herald, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and USA Today. She received a courage award
from Society of Professional Journalists for her coverage from the war
zones.



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