Egypt, Afghanistan and Beyond: Independent Journalism and International Crisis
Presenters
- Sharif Abdel Kouddous
Democracy Now!
Sharif Abdel Kouddous is a senior producer for the independent TV and radio show Democracy Now!, where he has worked since 2003. He has covered news stories around the world, reporting from Baghdad during the Iraq war, New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Haiti in the days after the January 2010 earthquake, and the popular uprising in Egypt.
- Jeff Cohen
Founding Director, Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College
Jeff Cohen, media critic and author, is founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, where he is an associate professor of journalism. Each year the center presents the Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media. In 1986, Jeff founded the national media watch group FAIR. He has been a TV commentator at CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, and was senior producer of MSNBC’s Phil Donahue primetime show until it was terminated three weeks before the Iraq invasion. He wrote about these experiences in the book, Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media. He is the co-author of four other books, including Wizards of Media Oz and The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error. His columns on media and politics are published online at such independent websites as CommonDreams, Truthout and Alternet — and have been published in dozens of dailies, including USA Today, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Miami Herald.
- Derrick Crowe
Brave New Foundation
Derrick Crowe is a political director at Brave New Foundation, which runs the Rethink Afghanistan campaign (rethinkafghanistan.com). He is also a five-year veteran of Capitol Hill and a trained “Creating a Culture of Peace” nonviolence facilitator. His writing has been featured in the Huffington Post and on MichaelMoore.com and AlterNet.
In Washington, D.C., Crowe served as communications director for U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.). Prior to working in Smith’s office, he worked in communications for U.S. Rep. Charlie Stenholm (D-Texas), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and the national office of the Children’s Defense Fund.
Crowe left D.C. in 2008 when it became clear that Democrats opposed President Bush’s strategic decisions while making war rather than challenging the militarization of the national economy and the overall use of war to resolve international conflicts. An active member of the peace movement, he organized vigils and participated in civil disobedience actions to call for the end of the Iraq war. He blogs on current events from a Christian nonviolence perspective at http://returngood.com.
- Ahmed Shihab-Eldin
Al Jazeera English
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin is a producer and co-host of The Stream – a web community with its own daily TV show on Al Jazeera English coming May 2011. Ahmed has also worked as a freelance reporter in Beirut, Dubai, Kuwait, Doha and Amman. Before joining Al Jazeera English, he worked as a reporter and producer for The Doha Film Institute, PBS' Wide Angle and the New York Times. Ahmed graduated with honors from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, and has taught new media courses there as an adjunct professor.
- Marcy Wheeler
Blogger, FireDogLake.com
Marcy blogs as "emptywheel" for FireDogLake.com. She is best known for her analysis of documents on torture and her liveblogging of the Scooter Libby trial. Her book, Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to Sell the Iraq War and Out a Spy, provided a primer on the CIA Leak case more generally. She has a Ph.D. from University of Michigan; her research focused on the oppositional uses of a particular literary-journalistic form that arose with the industrial press. Marcy is a recipient of the Hillman Award for blog journalism.
Video
Audio
- When
- Saturday, April 9, 11:00am - 12:30pm
- Where
- Cityview Ballroom
map (pdf) - Track
- Journalism and Public Media
Independent media makers are using new tools to tell the most important stories of our time. When pro-democracy protests erupted in Egypt, independent and non-commercial journalists were quickly on the scene offering more in-depth coverage than mainstream media. In Afghanistan, independent reporters keep asking the tough questions about the longest war in U.S. history. The panelists in this session are breaking new ground online and around the world – by means of blogs, YouTube, streaming video and other platforms. How are independent voices beating mainstream media to the story, amplifying their message, and shedding crucial light in times of crisis? How are independent journalists prodding mainstream media to cover issues they might otherwise ignore?
