Frontline Club Screening: “Another News Story”
As part of our Ethics in the News series of events in partnership with the Frontline Club, the EJN screened Another News Story followed by a Q&A with director / producer Orban Wallace, producer Verity Wislocki, and forced migration researcher Ahmad al-Rashid on Wednesday 4th April 2018.
The discussion after the film was moderated by Chair of the Ethical Journalism Network, Dorothy Byrne, who is the Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel 4.
Another News Story
Another News Story takes a fresh view of the European refugee crisis. The film opens in 2015 Greece as refugees arrive on the idyllic island of Lesbos and follows refugees into Hungary and Croatia and across Europe to a hoped-for sanctuary. Since 2015 the current refugee crisis has flooded every news and media outlet across the globe. Another News Story takes a unique approach to capturing this narrative. While still giving a groundfloor perspective of migrants fleeing Syria and Turkey and their struggle to find a country where they are welcome, director Orban Wallace simultaneously turns the camera on the journalists and the role they play in representing the crisis to the world. Wallace’s gripping debut feature raises important questions about what happens behind the camera, and how the life cycle of a news story starts and grows.
Another News Story has had 17 international film festival selections including Karlovy Vary, IDFA, Zurich and Glasgow among others. The UK theatrical release for the film is at the end of April.
Run Time: 84 mins
Trailer: http://www.anothernewsstory.com/
Ethical Journalism Network
The Ethical Journalism Network is an alliance of reporters, editors and publishers aiming to strengthen journalism around the world, working to build trust in news media through training, education and research.
The EJN has developed migration-reporting guidelines, which are available as an infographic and as a video have been used for training around Europe and have been presented to the United Nations in New York and other international forums.
The migration and media studies that the EJN has published or contributed to are:
To find out how to support the EJN visit: https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/support
To mark World Day against Trafficking in Persons 2017, the Ethical Journalism Network collaborated with the Frontline Club London to present Sea of Pictures – a documentary film about the ethics of how media use images of refugees and vulnerable people.
The film focuses on the image of Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi, who was found drowned on a beach in Turkey while trying to reach Europe with his family. This image went viral and became a symbol of the refugee crisis and the widespread international apathy up until that point. His image was seen on front pages of newspapers and shared extensively on social media across the globe.
The screening was followed by a debate chaired by Dorothy Byrne Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel Four in the United Kingdom. Dorothy is the Chairperson of the Ethical Journalism Network.
The panelists – photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lindr and the producer of Sea of Pictures, Misja Pekel – discussed how pictures can impact and reshape public discourse and policy, but often in ways that were entirely unintended.
Debate Chair
Dorothy Byrne is Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel Four in the United Kingdom. She was appointed in September 2003, having previously edited the award-winning Dispatches. During her tenure, the Channel’s news and current affairs programmes have won numerous BAFTA, RTS, Emmy Awards and others. In 2014, Dispatches won the RTS Journalism Awards for both best Home and best International Current Affairs, the first time one strand won both awards, and Channel Four News won the RTS Journalism Award for Best News Programme of the Year for the second year running.
Speakers
Anastasia Taylor-Lindr is an English/Swedish photojournalist who has been working on issues relating to women, population and war for over a decade. She is a Harvard Nieman Fellow 2016, and recently finished a year of research at the university on war, and how we tell stories about modern conflict. During the program she studied narrative non-fiction writing. Anastasia is also a TED fellow. She has written about her experiences as a photojournalist for The New York Times, TIME LightBox, Nieman Reports and National Geographic. As a photographic storyteller, her focus has been on long-form narrative reportage for monthly magazines. She is a National Geographic Magazine contributor, and other clients include Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, TIME, The New York Times, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph and The Guardian.
Misja Pekel is a film maker and producer of the film Sea of Pictures. Misja studied Law and Journalism in Amsterdam and Leeds. He is a documentary filmmaker at the Dutch public broadcasterHuman. Besides documentaries, he is working on Medialogica, a tv series about public opinion and the influence of media.
Ethical Migration Reporting
Over the last three years improving the quality of migration reporting has been a priority for the Ethical Journalism Network, conducting two major studies on migration coverage, creating practical tools for journalists.
The EJN has released a special edition of Ethics in the News in which the makers of Sea of Pictures, Misja Pekel and Maud van de Reijt write about the Ethics of Photographing Refugees and other vulnerable groups.
Last year the EJN was commissioned by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) to write a report on how media on both sides of the Mediterranean cover migration. The report, which was published to mark World Press Freedom Day on May 3, covers 17 countries and provides recommendations for media and policy makers.
For more from the EJN on migration reporting read Moving Stories, a report on how to cover the migration crisis and “How does the media on both sides of the Mediterranean report on migration?”