The Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) has joined media freedom groups supporting Julian Assange, an Australian citizen whose unjust prosecution continues to undermine press freedoms and human rights.

In light of recent developments and mounting concerns over Assange’s deteriorating health, JERAA said in a statement it had urged the United States to drop all charges against Assange and facilitate his immediate return to Australia.

Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has been the subject of relentless persecution by the US government for his efforts to expose war crimes and government misconduct.

Assange received a Walkley Award in 2011 for outstanding contribution to journalism through Wikileaks, which included the release of the 2010 “collateral murder” video and the publication of classified US diplomatic cables, shedding light on atrocities committed by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It is concerning that Assange faces up to 175 years in jail if found guilty of espionage charges — a sentence that would effectively silence whistle-blowers and journalists worldwide,” JERAA said.

The association said it believed that Assange’s indictment set a dangerous precedent and posed a grave threat to the fundamental principles of press freedom and freedom of expression.

‘Enough is enough’
JERAA commended Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for his support in calling for Assange’s release and said it echoed his sentiment that “enough is enough.”

PM Albanese’s recent vote in the federal Parliament for a motion demanding Assange’s return to Australia underscores the legitimacy of our demand. The motion, which received overwhelming support, leaves no room for ambiguity — it is time to bring Assange home.

The WikiLeaks 2010 “collateral damage” video.         Video: Al Jazeera

As the UK High Court prepares to rule on Assange’s appeal against extradition in a two-day hearing next week (February 20-21), and with Prime Minister Albanese’s continued efforts to advocate for Assange’s release, JERAA has urged the US to heed the calls for justice and drop all charges against Assange.

It is imperative that Assange’s rights as an Australian citizen be respected, and that he be afforded the opportunity to return home.

JERAA president Associate Professor Alexandra Wake said that while some members might not agree with all Assange has done in his life, it was clear that his work was central to our “understanding of press freedoms and human rights”.

“JERAA upholds the principles of a free and independent press. It is time to end the trial of global media freedom,” she said.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Journalism students from Australia’s Macleay College programme with 50 participants are saying their degrees have been cancelled just two weeks into the course.

Macleay is a private tertiary institution with campuses in Sydney and Melbourne. Macleay students say that on Friday afternoon they were sent an email saying their Bachelor of Journalism degree course would be cancelled due to low enrolment numbers.

The email states that first-year students can either switch to a digital media course or withdraw and receive a statement of attainment for their completed units.

Macleay College also requests that the students inform it of their decision by the census date on March 18.

This would leave the students with an extremely short time to make such an important decision.

Since the unexpected email on Friday afternoon, the university has not provided any further support to students, student Ezra Bell told Pedestrian.TV.

“There’s been no communication from the uni they’ve really just hung us out to dry,” she said.

“Why couldn’t they have said this to our faces?”

Bell doubted that enrolment numbers — about 48 are on the programme — were the reason for the shutdown.

“What’s the real reason because we all know low enrolments is not the case.”

This point was echoed by another Macleay journalism student, Kelsey Richmond. Richmond claimed that student enrolment numbers had actually increased.

Macleay students have taken to Twitter to vent about the experience.

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) confirmed on Saturday that the degree had been cancelled. The union estimated about 48 students would be impacted.

Student Chelsea Caffery claimed the college told students to reach out to psychologists if they need it. But the university’s mental health services do not re-open until Monday.

Chelsea further alleged that staff were not aware that the degree was going to be cancelled.

“To be told on a Friday afternoon after hours is really heartless,” Chelsea told news.com.

“The head of Journalism [Sue Stephenson] only found out minutes before the students did… after 5pm… on a Friday.”

After spending the day at @MacleayCollege just found out that my journalism degree has been canned two weeks in due to “low enrolments”. Absolutely devastated. 1/2

— Ezra Bell (@ezrabell_) March 11, 2022

The college has not released a statement about the situation yet, but it is already copping flack online.

Macleay College advised the dumped journo students to reach out to the psychologist if needed. Funny that. The psychologist isn’t open until Monday morning, and we were informed of the cancellation Friday afternoon. So I guess mental health can just wait til Monday, right?

— Chelsea Caffery (@ChelseaCaffery) March 11, 2022

As pointed out by Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) president Dr Alexandra Wake, most universities have now closed their enrolments.

It’s a very difficult time for this decision to have been made with first semester enrolments now closed at most universities – and it’s a long weekend in Victoria. Not sure what offer other unis can make but am looking into it.

— Alexandra Wake, PhD (@WakeinFright) March 11, 2022

This means it could be really hard for those students to re-enrol in other degrees.

On top of everything else, Macleay college’s degree in journalism is not cheap.

It costs $54,000 to complete all 24 units so the potential financial burden on students is high.

The private university is owned by fashion entrepreneur Sarah Stavrow. She told news.com that she would not be commenting.

Asia Pacific Report adds: A statement by the Australian Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) said it was seeking further information about Maclean’s decision and support that was being offered to affected students to complete their studies.

“The timing and manner of how this was communicated by Macleay College to their students is also of concern to TEQSA,” said the statement.

It added that if there had been a breach of the Higher Education Standards Framework, “appropriate enforcement action” would be taken to protect the students’ interests.

Kathleen Farmilo and Sweeney Preston are writers for Pedestrian.TV.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Journalism Research and Education Association of Australia (JERAA) has urged the Australian government to make a strong commitment to supporting journalists and media personnel in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of international forces.

JERAA said in a statement today it had endorsed the calls of Australia’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) for urgent action to provide humanitarian visas and other support to those attempting to flee the country.

In the current upheaval, it is difficult to obtain figures on how many journalists have been attacked, but the Afghan Independent Journalist Association and Afghanistan’s National Journalists Union express grave concerns for the well-being of journalists and media personnel.

Nai, an Afghan organisation supporting independent media, released figures indicating that by late July, at least 30 media workers had been killed, wounded or tortured in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2021.

UNESCO has recorded five deaths of journalists in Afghanistan in 2021, making it the country with the world’s greatest number of journalists’ deaths this year. Four have been women, reflecting the higher risk of attacks on female journalists.

Current figures are likely to be incomplete due to the challenges of obtaining information. They do not include deaths of professionals in related industries, such as the murder of the Head of Afghan government Media and Information Centre on August 6.

The Taliban has a long-established pattern of striking out against journalists.

A Human Rights Watch report, released in April 2021, in the lead up to the United States and NATO troop withdrawal, noted that Taliban forces had already established a practice of targeting journalists and other media workers.

Journalists are intimidated, harassed and attacked routinely by the Taliban, which regularly accuses them of being aligned with the Afghan government or international military forces or being spies.

Female journalists face a higher level of threats, especially if they have appeared on television and radio.

International Press Institute figures, released in May 2021 at the start of the troop withdrawals, also showed that Afghanistan had the highest rate of deaths of journalists in the world.

The IPI expressed concern about an intensification of attacks on journalists and the future of the news media in Afghanistan.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

How disappointing to read another opinion piece in Australian papers repeating time-old arguments that fail to acknowledge the excellent education in journalism provided by universities around the country, an education many working journalists – and therefore readers – have benefited from.

It is concerning that anyone would argue that there are thousands of journalism graduates in Australia each year. There are not thousands of journalism graduates in Australia, as anyone who has tried to hire one in regional Australia would well know.

At my own university, RMIT, we can barely graduate enough journalism students for the needs of the Victorian news industry.

READ MORE: Back to the future: It’s time to rethink the way we train journalists

Universities in the states also report excellent employment opportunities for recent and soon-to-be graduates.

Australian universities generally offer a more general communications degree that can be used for a range of careers beyond journalism. Very few programmes offer straight journalism degrees and even those that do provide students with a range of courses that give graduates a much greater range of skills than the vocational skills taught in the legacy news organisations of yesteryear.

Thirty years ago, there was some in-house training for journalism cadets. I am also a product of the “straight from high school” cadetship system of this period, and I am acutely aware of its deficits.

On-the-job training at legacy media was well-intentioned and concentrated mostly on correct grammar rather than the skills required for modern reporting.

Critical thinking, research skills
Today’s university graduates who want to become are likely to have completed courses that allow them to manipulate data spreadsheets, create visualisations, fact check and verify information, capture photographs and audio, take photographs, and put together audio and visual packages. They also develop critical thinking and research skills, and learn about politics and the economy.

New technology has provided journalism students with opportunities far beyond what is offered by the legacy media. Media fragmentation and the speed of disseminating information and opinion present opportunities for graduates with a good understanding of how to leverage new technologies and platforms such as social media, digital and interactive TV, and how to produce rich mobile content.

I certainly agree with it would be fantastic to have entry-level journalism students paid while learning. For me, the legacy media is no longer in a position to provide sufficient in-house education to young trainees because they’ve been cut to the bone with no space for training and certainly cannot provide the depth of training that a university offers.

However, I’m sure all educators would welcome legacy news offerings offering paid journalism internships which are already an important part of a journalism university programme.

While some are pessimistic about the industry, I have no hesitation in encouraging anyone interested in a career in journalism to enrol in a university programme. Journalism is not only a fun-filled and exciting course of study, it is one from which, when our work is done well, every Australian benefits.

In short, our work is critical to and underpins civil society.

Dr Alexandra Wake is president of the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA).

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

The Pacific Media Centre’s Bearing Witness climate change project has won the Dart Asia-Pacific Prize for Journalism and Trauma at the annual Ossie Awards in Student Journalism presented at the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) annual conference at Newcastle University last night.

PMC journalists Julie Cleaver and Kendall Hutt received the award for a multimedia feature on the Fijian village of Tukuraki, which was hit by a deadly landslide and two cyclones in the space of five years.

Cleaver and Hutt travelled to the village in the highlands of Ba, Viti Levu, in April to trace its journey of recovery as the first inland village to be relocated due to climate change.

Dart Centre Asia-Pacific director Cait McMahon praised the pair for their sensitivity in reporting the story of Vilimaina Botitu and her family.

“Cleaver and Hutt’s victim-focused story of climate change in Fiji through the eyes of one woman and her family’s tragedy was sensitive, well researched and of a high professional standard,” she said.

“The story was informative, and introduced a difficult-to-report climate change story in a very personal yet non-gratuitous way.

“The modality of hearing the survivor’s voice without interference from the journalist resulted in a well-produced and intelligently edited piece,” McMahon said.

Victim, survivor focus
The Dart Centre Asia-Pacific award is for reporting on the impact of violence, crime, disaster and other traumatic events on individuals, families and communities. Entries should focus on the experience of victims and survivors as well as contribute to public understanding of trauma-related issues.

Cleaver and Hutt were in Fiji on the Bearing Witness project, a collaborative venture between the University of the South Pacific’s journalism programme, the Pacific Centre for the Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD), the Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre and documentary collective Te Ara Motuhenga.

Bearing Witness seeks to provide an alternative framing of climate change, focusing on resilience and human rights.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz