From Maxwell Perspective...

Eyewitnesses to Change

Maxwell also co-hosts the Murrow Program, for journalists from North Africa and the Middle East.

This fall, for the sixth consecutive year, Maxwell and SU’s Newhouse School of Public Communications co-hosted a contingent of international journalists participating in the State Department’s Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists. The 17 journalists in this year’s cohort represented 12 countries in North Africa and the Middle East: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine Territories, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.

Participants in the Murrow Program spent three weeks in the U.S., beginning with an orientation phase at the State Department in Washington, D.C. They spent one week at SU, participating with faculty and students in various academic seminars at both Maxwell and Newhouse. Topics related to how a democracy functions and the responsibilities of a free press in a democracy. The journalists also met with local print and broadcast journalists, toured the Onondaga County Board of Elections, engaged with a range of community members, and participated in social outings.

During their trip to America, the journalists also visited St. Louis, to observe U.S. media coverage of state politics and government, as well as American civic life and grassroots involvement in political affairs; and New York City, where they met with members of the media and attended a closing symposium on the impact of media literacy on journalism.

SU is one of 10 universities this year hosting Murrow journalists — in all, 150 journalists from 105 countries. There are now more than 900 Murrow Program alumni around the world.

— Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

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Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers is a contributor to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and the author, most recently, of The Complete Singer-Songwriter.

This article appeared in the fall 2011 print edition of Maxwell Perspective; © 2011 Maxwell School of Syracuse University.