Global Classroom: Media Literacy & Press Rights with Visiting African Journalists
March 8th, 2018 4:30PM -7:30PM
The digital age has made it easy for anyone to create media, and students today are constantly bombarded by sources of information ranging from discussion boards and social media to video games and streamed videos. All this media is created for a reason, and understanding that reason is the basis of media literacy. With access to so much information, it is critical that students learn the fundamentals of discerning bias and credibility.
Hand-in-hand with the unprecedented freedom to create provided by the Digital Age is the right to publish those creations. An essential symbol of that right is a free and independent press. An independent press is one of the essential pillars of democracy, but with the number of journalists jailed around the world reaching all-time highs, media freedom is proving to be increasingly fragile. Across the globe, journalists have been arrested or threatened by government agents seeking to silence the press. Though authoritarian regimes and dictatorships have long been the source of violations of the freedom to inform, media freedom has become vulnerable even in democracies as well.
Please join Global Classroom, alongside our partner programs, for an evening dedicated to Media Literacy and the rights and responsibilities of a free press at The Seattle Times. The program will begin with a discussion for educators on Media Literacy hosted by Linda Kennedy, founder and director of LK Media. Ms. Kennedy is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years’ experience in print and broadcast media. She is also a member of the Northwest Center for Excellence in Media Literacy, and has been educating on the topic for over 15 years.
The Council will then welcome a panel of journalists from Sub-Saharan Africa selected by the State Department for the Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists. Each year, more than 75 journalists from around the world are brought to the United States to explore the ideal of media freedom and U.S. efforts to maintain and encourage such freedom of expression through the program. Educators will join community members for this program, and will have an opportunity to engage in Q/A with the journalists after a moderated discussion.
The full workshop is $30.00, including light food and free clock hours. Please note that clock hours will only be provided to attendees who stay for the entire program.