Reporting the Issues in Reporting Asia

Abstract

In March this year, ten journalists from all major newspaper groups attended Australia's first ever workshop for journalists. Its subject was the coverage of international news by the Australian press. Organized by the Freedom from Hunger Campaign, the workshop required participants to assess their own product Whereas journalists are constantly evaluating their work on a day to day basis, in this exercise they took the novel approach of reviewing their coverage of one story over a number of months. The object was to have journalists review how well their newspapers explained the issues to their readers, by having them drop their customary role of producers of news, and become its recipients. The experience led them to question whether the traditional framework for reporting was adequate to the task of informing Australians about Asia.