Latest news with #ReutersInstitutefortheStudyofJournalism
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Yahoo
Someone stole my BBC broadcasting bike - it's like losing a friend
I was planning an ordinary afternoon out - bags packed, ready to roll - when I bounded downstairs and was hit by a jolt of disbelief. The space where my cargo bike should have been was empty, and the double lock that had bolted it to my Amsterdam apartment wall was hacked. My daughter darted between the other bikes, convinced someone must have moved it, but no, it was gone. With cycling deeply embedded in daily life here in the Netherlands - part of the "Dutch DNA", as we say - I have no car, so used my bike for everything, from the school run to a shopping trip. This was no ordinary bicycle. My colleague Kate Vandy and I retrofitted it to become a mobile broadcasting studio, which we named the Bike Bureau. I started "Dutch News from the Cycle Path", a reporting series born on the school run after my daughter asked me: "Why don't you just tell people the news now?" The bike allowed me to reach breaking news scenes and broadcast live from anywhere, my daughter by my side, showing that working motherhood could be visible, joyful and real. It opened doors to collaborations, awards and a community of people who saw themselves in our story. I have zero expectation of getting the bike back, and searching for it has proven fruitless. I called the police immediately and they opened a case, but closed it shortly afterwards because of a lack of evidence that would help find the thief. People online and in my local community have rallied round to try to find it since I put out an appeal. Neighbours asked if I was okay, telling me they loved to see me enjoy their bike lanes and see their city from my foreigner's perspective. But why, my daughter asked, do so many people care that our bike was stolen? Colleagues and friends responded to my Instagram Reel about the theft. Legendary BBC camerawoman Julie Ritson called my bike a blueprint for the future of journalism. Others said it was a relatable life-hack that showed how one person can manage motherhood and career, and inspired them to rethink what's possible with a cargo bike. It was solar-powered, cutting the need for satellite trucks with heavy equipment and the pollution that mode of transport brings. Research last year from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism shows audiences are not only interested in climate change news - they are particularly engaged by stories that highlight individuals taking empowering action in response to the crisis. Some people have expressed surprise that "this kind of thing" would happen in the Netherlands. What they may not realise is that bike theft is endemic here. Last year, more than 86,000 bikes were reported stolen in the Netherlands, up 1,000 compared to the year before, and 10,000 more than in 2022, according to police figures. Authorities say a rise in reports may have contributed to this. Most bikes stolen are stripped for parts or sold on. My e-cargo bike cost nearly €5,000 (£4,200) - more than our old car which I sold. I paid for the bike, so the BBC has undergone no financial loss. What it really bought me was independence - and in a way, losing it is like losing a friend. Aside from the impact on my own lifestyle, that bike gave my daughter a magical, nature-filled childhood: picnics in the dunes, detours to see highland cows, fairy lights in winter, breezy rides to the beach in summer. The theft has sparked conversations about urban safety, cycling infrastructure, and the burdens mothers still carry. But it's also a testament to the community we've built and the power of sharing authentic stories from the saddle. I might not get my bike back, but no one can steal what it gave us all. Why Dutch 'bike banks' are a game changer for kids He dreamed of a cycling revolution. Then an SUV crushed him Video guide made for new 'Dutch-style' roundabout
Morocco World
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Morocco World
HACA Pushes for Ethical, More Balanced Portrayal of Women in Moroccan News Media
Rabat – Morocco's High Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HACA) has taken a new step toward subverting outdated portrayals of women in news content. On April 29, the institution released a short awareness video on the representation of women in Moroccan news, exploring issues of civic equality and democratic inclusion that still stubbornly persist. Presented during a workshop in Rabat, the video forms part of HACA's broader effort to reshape the way women appear across TV, radio, and other online platforms in Morocco. More than just a campaign, the initiative poses an urgent question: Why do Moroccan newsrooms still struggle to fully embrace the country's diverse female voices? The event brought together a wide mix of actors and stakeholders, from members of HACA's governing council to parliamentarians, human rights advocates, government officials, and editors from public and private broadcasters. Journalists sat next to civil society activists and digital specialists to ponder the same problem: how to break the persistent patterns that either erase women from the news or box them into reductive, symbolic roles. Those around the table agreed: news is not neutral. When women appear less often, or only in limited contexts, the media helps reinforce outdated norms. That silence carries consequences, not just for individual women, but for democratic life as a whole. A free pass cannot fully serve its public if it does not reflect it. Time to change who tells the news In his opening remarks, HACA Director General Benaissa Asloun invited participants to think about how the media shapes public thinking. He pointed out that small shifts in editorial decisions could lead to broader change, especially as Morocco continues its debate over reforming the Family Code. HACA President Latifa Akharbach provided more concrete evidence. Drawing on the institution's participation in the Global Media Monitoring Project, she shared data that exposed deep imbalances in who appears on screen and how stories are framed. She noted that women's voices often disappear in stories of political and economic relevance, while men continue to dominate expert commentary. For Akharbach, the new video is part of a long-term strategy to ground media regulation in human rights. By circulating the video on social media, HACA hopes to reach audiences beyond formal institutions and invite the public to take part in rethinking the role of women in media. The conversations at the workshop did not aim to assign blame but to build common ground. Everyone present recognized that more inclusive reporting does not come from checklists of slogans, but begins with awareness, intention, and a willingness to listen. Still no women at the top A 2025 study led by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and Oxford University notes a persistent gender imbalance at the highest levels of news leadership. Analyzing 240 major news outlets, online and offline, across 12 countries on five continents, researchers found that only 27% of the 171 top editors are women. This stands in sharp contrast to the broader workforce, where women make up roughly 40% of journalists. Even among newly appointed editors in 2024 and 2025, women accounted for just 27%, a marginal increase from the 24% reported in 2024. The findings point to the disheartening global trend that men continue to dominate editorial leadership, even in countries where women represent the majority of working journalists. Representation varies widely, from a meager 7% in South Korea to a relatively higher 46% in the UK. The research underlines entrenched dynamics within the media industry itself, where internal structures and career progression paths remain largely unyielding to gender parity. Despite years of data, debate, and awareness campaigns, the leadership gap remains stubbornly wide. The question is no longer whether women belong in top editorial roles, but when the industry will finally act on what it already knows. How much longer must these conversations circle before real structural change takes root, and when will women's inclusion stop being a goal and start becoming a norm?
The Independent
15-04-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Trump's $2bn row with Harvard reveals his hypocrisy when it comes to free speech
The guest at an Oxford lecture recently was rewriting his speech in the taxi. A professor at Columbia University, New York, Jelani Cobb had just learned of the arrest and imminent deportation of one of the college's graduate students. Since his theme was free speech, he could hardly ignore the subject. Cobb was about to give the annual Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism lecture las month when he was told that a member of the Columbia community, Mahmoud Khalil, had been snatched off the street by immigration agents in New York and taken into detention in Louisiana. Donald Trump said he would be stripped of his green card and deported. The president simultaneously revoked $400m in federal grants and contracts over what he claimed was the university's failure to combat antisemitism. There is no evidence that Khalil has done anything unlawful. But he stands accused of 'un-American activity' for his role in helping to lead campus protests over Israel's attacks on Gaza following the October 7 massacre in which nearly 1,200 were killed and many taken hostage. Some Jewish students have said that the protests veered into antisemitism and made them feel unsafe on campus. Other Jewish students participated in the rallies. Just this past weekend, immigration judge Jamee E Comans ruled that the government could deport him. In Oxford, Cobb pointed to the irony that the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which is being used against Khalil, is 'a piece of Cold War legislation that was commonly weaponised against Jewish immigrants during antisemitic purges of alleged subversives'. There are, indeed, multiple ironies. It seems like only yesterday that vice president JD Vance was in Munich lecturing Europe about its alleged failure to protect free speech. Not a peep from him. Britain's own free speech tsar, Arif Ahmed, interviewed in The Telegraph, urged vice-chancellors to 'show backbone' in championing free speech on campuses. He described a scenario in which a vice-chancellor might say to a troublesome academic: ''You better tone it down a bit,' in a vaguely threatening way. That's contrary to everything a university is for.' He was thinking primarily about China trying to muzzle free speech, but the same principle surely applies. Only it doesn't, really, when it comes to speech defending the Palestinian cause. Indeed, Columbia itself acknowledged the double standard when Stuart Karle, an adjunct professor and first amendment lawyer, advised students who were not US citizens to refrain from publishing work on Gaza. 'If you have a social media page, make sure it is not filled with commentary on the Middle East.' When a Palestinian student protested, Cobb was blunt: 'Nobody can protect you,' he said. 'These are dangerous times.' Indeed, they are. The president of Columbia, Minouche Shafik, was forced to resign over her handling of the protests. Her peers, Liz Magill of Penn University and Claudine Gay at Harvard, were also effectively forced to quit. A few brave voices defended them. At Harvard, a veteran African American law professor, Randall Kennedy, wrote: 'The sad reality is that Claudine Gay and Harvard University were upended by a bunch of ruthless right-wing politicians and activists, desperate friends of Israel alarmed by the rise of a pro-Palestinian constituency, disturbed mega-donors and resentful insiders seething at a 'diversity' ethos that they perceive as lowering standards.' Claudine Gay is also African American. Now the president of Harvard, Alan Garber, has said the university will not adhere to White House demands which include reporting students to the government who are 'hostile' to American values and scrapping diversity, equity and inclusion policies. In response, the US government has said it is freezing $2.2bn in grants and $60m in contracts. The British writer Rachel Shabi's recent book Off White dissects 'how antisemitism has become a 'Gotcha!' moment: a stick with which the right clobbers the left'. She watched with appalled fascination the congressional hearings at which American university chiefs were skewered: 'It showed how claims of antisemitism are cynically involved to silence pro-Palestinian voices and then attached to a broader culture war that strikes out against antiracism, 'wokeness', critical race theory, diversity, equity and inclusion programmes or just a generalised 'liberal elite'.' At the same time, she noted, progressives often 'lacked the ability to recognise actual antisemitism'. The Free Speech Union, Toby Young's energetic ginger group, has so far had nothing to say about Columbia University's latest debacle, though its website does quote Arif Ahmed's remarks about the importance of free expression at universities at some length. Meanwhile, in Britain, the Royal Television Society has been accused of cowardice for scrapping an award for journalists in Gaza because they did not want to deepen the controversy around a BBC documentary on the conflict. More than 300 TV and film professionals have criticised the last-minute decision not to award the prize, with Jonathan Dimbleby saying: 'The decision is craven and the grounds on which it has been made – the fact that there is an issue around one BBC film – are specious and shallow. No journalist working in Gaza was involved in the making of that film.' He added: 'We depend hugely on the reporting of those journalists who are in Gaza, who put their lives on the line every day, because no Western journalists can enter except on specially conducted trips. 'The RTS is rightly held in very high regard and that it should suddenly abdicate its role because it doesn't want to muddy the water is cowardly and ill-judged.' Back to Oxford and Cobb's hastily rewritten speech, in which he drew comparisons between what is happening now and the 1950s McCarthy era in the US, when there was a witch hunt against people in public life with the 'wrong views'. Then, as now, universities were targeted. Cobb ended his speech with a passage on why it matters: 'Institutions are created in order to codify values. Our universities, our governments – certainly, our news organisations – were meant to not only embody particular principles but to assure that they can be preserved and transmitted across generations. 'Values are meant to guide us in difficult times – in the easy times we already know what to do. The paradox, of course, is that the minute you establish something based upon principle you are confronted by the question of when you will bend for expediency.' It is obvious that the attempted deportation of Khalil is an attempt to intimidate others – universities and individuals alike. His wife Noor Abdulla, an American citizen, is eight months pregnant. I very much hope her husband is freed in time to greet his new baby, and that the double standards around Palestinian speech are exposed for what they are.
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Indian journalist appointed director of Reuters Institute at Oxford University
An Indian journalist has been appointed director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. Mitali Mukherjee, who has been acting director since Rasmus Nielsen stepped down last October, was selected in an open process that concluded in late March and will take up her new post immediately. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism is dedicated to exploring the future of journalism worldwide through debate, engagement, and research. Its activities include a flagship journalist fellowship programme, leadership programmes, and research programmes to provide timely, evidence-based analysis of issues facing journalism and news media around the world. Ms Mukherjee has led its journalist programmes since September 2022 and represented the institute in conferences and events around the world. Mitali Mukherjee (Image: University of Oxford) Under her leadership, the institute has added new sponsors to its journalist fellowship programme and secured funding for the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, an initiative that supports hundreds of journalists to improve the quality, understanding, and impact of climate coverage around the world. Ms Mukherjee said: "I am honoured to take on the role of director at the Reuters Institute and to be leading an exceptional team of colleagues. "Our core mission is to explore the future of journalism worldwide through debate, engagement, and research, and I am looking forward to working with the Department of Politics and International Relations, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, and industry partners to build on our achievements and mission. "In a time of unpredictability and shift across the world, we are, and will remain, international in our reach and impact." Ms Mukherjee is a political economy journalist with more than two decades of experience in TV, print, and digital journalism. In 2020, she was nominated for the Red Ink Awards in India for two of her business stories. Alan Rusbridger, chair of the Reuters Institute's steering committee, said: "I am thrilled that Mitali will succeed Rasmus Nielsen as director. "She has been outstanding in her two terms as acting director and she has a clear and compelling vision for the next stage. "The Reuters Institute was always intended to be a bridge between academic research into the future of journalism and the profession itself. "Her directorship comes at a time of both great danger and extraordinary transformation. "The institute will have a unique role to play in this transformation and couldn't be in better hands." Mr Nielsen was the institute's director from 2018 to 2024. Under his leadership, the institute produced award-winning, widely cited, and increasingly global academic research, and launched new work focused on climate change, diversity in news leadership, and artificial intelligence.
The Guardian
01-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Outlets seek fresh strategies as UK poll shows ‘news avoidance' on the rise
Newsrooms around the world are deploying 'ethics boxes', story summaries and bite-size explainers to tackle the growing trend of 'news avoidance', as an increase in content and distrust in the media cause more people to tune out. Less than half (47%) of those asked about their news consumption said they viewed television news programmes regularly or had done so in the last week, according to a new Opinium poll. The figure fell to 29% for radio news and 26% for news websites. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine, inflation and the climate crisis have contributed to increased concerns that the news is too negative, too voluminous and too overwhelming, according to research examining the problem. The trend of consciously avoiding the news is being bolstered by a lack of trust in the media among young people – as well as technical changes to social media and search platforms that has meant less traffic driven towards news sites. Reaching generation Z is a major preoccupation in newsrooms. With trust seen as a driver of their fatigue, some editors in the UK are planning to push content that tells them how a story was put together, with more explicit information about the number of sources spoken to and the main characters involved. The Scandinavian media company Schibsted has already started to put 'ethics boxes' on stories, describing the editorial decisions that went into them. These have included why someone accused of a particular crime has been named and depicted, along with the rules the publication tries to follow. It is an attempt to respond to recent research that trust of traditional news brands has waned among young people. It comes against a backdrop of a long-term decline in seeking out the news, with the British among those suffering from the most fatigue. The proportion who say they have a high interest in news has almost halved in the UK over the last decade, from 70% in 2015 to 38% last year, according to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Women, young people and those without a university degree make up a significant proportion of that decline. News outlets across Europe are now exploring ways to make content more personal and less overwhelming for users. Industry figures said that there were now distinct news 'snackers', who wanted concise but regular news, as well as 'briefers', who just wanted a one-off update, helping them to limit their news consumption. As a result, the use of explainers is set to grow, helping those with less interest to catch up on events. Breaking news summaries are also aimed at those seeking only the latest events. Greater 'personalisation' is seen by BBC bosses as key in appealing to news avoiders, particularly younger audiences. Artificial intelligence is expected to play a part in the corporation's personalisation plans, which have yet to be outlined, and it has strict guidelines on how the technology can be used. The public remains wary of the corporation using AI. Asked if they would support the BBC using it to personalise their content, only 13% supported the idea, with 46% opposing it. Major newsrooms are actively seeking to produce fewer stories to avoid overwhelming users. Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) has launched a product called Kompakt, with the tag line: 'Read less, know more.' Concerns over news avoidance also partly account for the boom in newsletters and podcasts, which curate a handful of manageable stories most important for the audience. There are also attempts across Europe towards 'constructive journalism', which seeks to increase features on how societal problems are being solved and the people solving them. A race to provide short video content is also expected, including more conversational podcasts, as well as broadening offers with puzzles and lighter content. Reach, the group that publishes the Mirror and Express titles, recently opened studios in London aimed at creating 'vertical video' that can be watched on phones.
