This article profiles a March 2008 assignment in Iraq for the US Department of State. The author's goal: to train broadcast journalists in TV news reporting and the production of accurate, effective and unbiased feature news stories on controversial issues.
This combination of basic broadcast journalism and technical TV news production skills would prove especially suited to northern Iraq where terrestrial and satellite television were introduced relatively recently and education and training have been minimal.
Eighteen seasoned journalists and their news crews from the cities of Erbil, Sulaimaniya and Dohuk underwent intensive training in television news field production (ENG - electronic news gathering) and broadcast journalism.
All lived and worked in the most dangerous nation in the world for journalists - their death toll exceeding 130 since 2003.
Robert A. Hooper is a broadcast and television journalism educator in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Affairs at the University of California, San Diego. He has conducted several training workshops in the South Pacific, including for Fiji Television in late 2010.
Hooper, Robert A. (2011). Rebuilding Iraqi media: Lessons from the Muslim world. Journal of Media Education, 2(2), pp. 5-17. April 2011. Full text/video clips available @ http://en.calameo.com/read/0000917892f0725515422