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INVESTIGATIVE RESEARCH Short Course - limited places available
This practical course teaches how to access information available on the public record, which is often missed by those who do not know how to look for it. The course covers land titles searches, basic private, parliamentary, government and public company information including databases on electoral funding and government contracts. It will draw on real case studies to illustrate key techniques used by investigative researchers.
The course lecturer Professor Wendy Bacon is Director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism and Head of the Academic Group Journalism, Information and Media Studies. Her teaching areas include media law, investigative journalism, media theory and legal reporting. Wendy pioneered the teaching of investigative journalism in Australia building on her own experience as an investigative journalist for The National Times, the Sun Herald, Channel Nine's Sunday program, Sixty Minutes, and the Special Broadcasting Service's overseas program Dateline. A winner of the prestigious Walkley Award for her reporting on corruption in NSW, Wendy continues to produce investigative reports for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism.
This course will run 23 (Tues), 27 (Sat) and 30 (Tues) June - Two Tuesday evenings 6 to 9pm and one Saturday 10am to 4.30pm. Places limited to 14 participants.
Course fee: $750 or $500 concession (further discounts available for UTS staff, students and Alumni)
For further information please visit: Investigative Research
For information on our June to December short courses please view our 2009 Short Course brochure
Entries now open for the Geroge Munster Award for Independent Journalism - entries close 17 July
The George Munster Award is for the best piece of journalism or series, published or broadcast in any medium in the 12 months prior to 30 June 2009. Originally an award for freelance journalism, the award has been expanded to include applicants from any medium who are not necessarily freelancers, but who can demonstrate independence of mind, acuity and excellence in their craft. The award carries a prize of $1,000. For more information and an application form, see the George Munster Award. For details of previous winners and their stories.
'Shooting Balibo' - East Timor - Tony Maniaty
In 1975, on his first overseas posting as a reporter, Tony Maniaty, was sent to the Portugese colony of East Timor. What he experienced and witnessed in the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia, including meeting the journalists we now know as the 'Balibo Five', has haunted him. Last year, Tony decided to go back to East Timor to accompany the cast and crew of the film Balibo. This journey and his recollections are now recorded in a book, 'Shooting Balibo: blood and memory in East Timor'.
Shooting Balibo
They say we've only got one war in us, and my days in Timor in 1975 were enough to teach me many things, not least that experience in the house of conflict is expanded, and that the exhilaration of war, once felt, can never be replicated in everyday life; that risk goes hand in hand with raw beauty; that life is never so intense as it is, or was, in that compression of life called war...
Tony Maniaty was the Director of the ACIJ in 2008. He teaches International Journalism at UTS.
Read his views on war reporting on ABC Unleashed.
Shooting Balibo (Penguin) is available at all good bookshops. ISBN 97806700735080
For more information, see Tony Maniaty.
UTS Postgraduate or Honours Students to enter the Wanda Jamrozik Prize - Deadline 24 July
Commemorating the journalist Wanda Jamrozik (1960-1996), this Prize is awarded to UTS students who submit a thesis/project in the areas of jouralism, media studies or a related field in communication, which is judged to exemplify human values in the media, especially in relation to ethnic, racial and multicultural issues, both in Australia and internationally. For more information and an application form see Wanda Jamrozik Prize.
Pacific Media Centre coverage of media censorship in Fiji
These past months have been a harrowing time for Fiji as its constitution was abrogated, the judiciary was sacked and censorship imposed on the media. The AUT Pacific Media Centre, the New Zealand based institutional member of the ACIJ, which recently made a submission to the Fiji Media Council independent review, was very active during the troubles, putting out a statement criticising the "ruthless censorship" and providing research information to global media freedom monitoring agencies. The centre's director, A/Professor David Robie, provided commentary and Josephine Latu, the Pacific Media Watch contributing editor from Tonga, was active with some special reports. For media coverage from PMC students and staff with a different perspective than what was generally in the mainstream press, go to:
Pacific Media Centre News Blog - www.pacificmediacentre.blogspot.com
Pacific Media Watch - www.pacmediawatch.aut.ac.nz
PMC on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/pacmedcentre
Pacific Media Centre website - www.pmc.aut.ac.nz
Cafe Pacific - David Robie's blog
'Diversity, identity and the media', the May edition of the Pacific Journalism Review, published by the AUT Pacific Media Centre, is out now. Targeting censorship in Fiji and cross-cultural reporting, it is available both online and in hardcopy.
Journalist has been charged with criminal defamation
Respected East Timorese journalist Jose Belo has been charged with criminal defamation following the publication of an article in his newspaper Tempo Semanal alleging improper conduct by Justice Minister Lucia Lobato. Jose Belo, who is a key figure in attempting to build a democratic media in East Timor, has been charged under old Indonesian law. An open protest letter (104Kb pdf), released by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, has been signed by over 85 media industry, legal and academic people ranging from ABC Four Corners investigative journalist Liz Jackson, SBS Dateline's Mark Davis and British-based filmmaker and author John Pilger. The letter is being sent to President JosŽ Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.
The Timor-Leste government has passed a new penal code that decriminalises defamation but the President hasn't yet promulgated this. Commentary and further information is on blog Timor-Leste Today, Crikey.com.au and cafe pacific, posted by Pacific Media Watch, Auckland University of Technology.
Further information: Professor Wendy Bacon, Director ACIJ - wendy.bacon@uts.edu.au.
2009 Seminars
Throughout the year, ACIJ will host forums and seminars to promote discussion and debate on issues surrounding journalism, media and the public right to know. These forums are open to students, people from industry, academics and the public. Join our email mailing list to be advised about these events.
Information about seminars hosted by the ACIJ over the last two years is available at News.
Mark Schapiro launches the Global Environmental Journalism Initiative at UTS
ACIJ Director, Wendy Bacon,
opening the launch of the
Global Environmental
Journalism Initiative
A world-first partnership between universities in Europe and Australia to enhance the media's capacity to report the world's environmental challenges was launched last week at UTS. In launching the Global Environmental Journalism Initiative (GEJI), visiting US investigative journalist and author Mark Schapiro said journalists were being challenged to bring a global perspective to what were inherently local issues. "There are kids in LA being affected by pollution blown across the Pacific from China," he said. "An initiative like this fosters the ability of investigative journalists to exchange information and to track money and power across international boundaries." For more information about the launch.
GEJI involves influential journalism schools at four Australian and five European universities. The universities are collaborating to develop a new international educational program in journalism including student exchanges, online student collaboration and story development, and research on how the media covers environmental issues.The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) and the European Commission are funding the student exchanges and the institutional collaboration that are a significant part of the project.
Mark's visit to Australia was hosted by the Walkley Foundation for Excellence in Journalism.
Global Environmental Journalism Initiative launched at the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Denmark.
International journalism students at the Danish School of Media and Journalism covered the Beyond Kyoto Climate conference in Aarhus, Denmark. Read their reports at Gejiweb (http://www.gejiweb.org/beky/).
GEJI Survey of Plastic Shopping Bags - London, Hong Kong & Australia
Journalism students from the University of Technology (UTS), Sydney, City University in London, Monash University in Melbourne and Hong Kong Baptist University in Hong Kong collaborated in producing a major report about plastic bag use, observing more than 6500 supermarkets shoppers in Australia, London and Hong Kong.
For the survey results and more GEJI related stories, see Journalism Education - News & Environment.
Three top journalism students have won the prestigious Global Environmental Journalism Initiative (GEJI).
Malin Hauk (International Officer), Sophi Tarr & Lauren Day
(both third year UTS Journalism students),
and Alexander Uggla (lecturer in International Seminar)
at the Swedish School of Social Sciences.
Lauren & Sophie have since departed on an
international reporting trip to Estonia.
Students from five European universities and four Australian universities will study environmental journalism whilst on exchange under an initiative jointly funded by the European Union and the Australian Government. The Global Environmental Journalism Initiative (GEJI) aims to prepare future journalists to better report on increasingly relevant global environmental issues. Participating students are funded $8500 each to enable them to study a semester overseas.
Over there now are UTS students Gemma Black, Lauren Day and Sophie Tarr. Gemma is studying at the Danish School of Media and Journalism and Lauren and Sophie at Helsinki University.
Other participating Australian universities include Monash and Murdoch Universities and the University of Tasmania. In Europe, the Danish School of Media & Journalism, London's City University, and Helsinki University Finland with S‡mi University College, Kautokeino, Norway will also be taking part, along with Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece.
The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism is involved in GEJI and hosts information on it on the acij website. For more information about the initiative and the funding it attracts, see GEJI.
