Thursday, June 14, 2007
Helping hand
Have been reluctant to write about this until I actually accomplished something, but today I did.
I've been involved with a group called CEPET, or Centro de Periodismo y Etica Publica (For English speakers, that's Center for Journalism and Public Ethics. For Spanish speakers, sorry about the lack of accent marks. Look for future blog/bitch on Windows Vista.)
Anyway, this group is really cool, and you can read more about it at www.cepet.org. (There's a button on the left side for English translation.) Their mission, for those who don't care to go to the site, is to promote professional standards, training and ethics in Mexican journalism, freedom of expression, and to protect victims and prevent attacks and threats on same. Right now, Mexico is the second most dangerous country for journalists, following only Iraq. It's an interesting time here: just as Mexican journalists are learning to use relatively new transparency laws (more or less what would fall under the Freedom of Information Act in the US), there are unprecedented numbers of attacks and threats against journalists and media outlets by narcotraficantes and politicians, business owners and other powerful people who may fall in the crosshairs of an investigation. Because the tradition of advocacy/investigative journalism is not as strong here (though there are fabulous exceptions to this), and because, right now, politicians and police officers are also being targeted in greater numbers, those attacks are not perceived in quite the same way they would be in the US. (Though these days, as we seem to blithely ignore and abandon the free press as it was once conceived, I guess that's not exactly true about US perception. Look south of the border for an interesting picture of what could happen, one day, to us, if we don't exercise those rights we take for granted.)
So, enough of the rant....what did you do, girl? Here's what: I wrote my first grant proposal! It's to help fund a national alert system for attacks on freedom of expression. We'll see whether we get it. I was so thrilled to hit the send button today, but then I learned that I also have to translate it into Spanish. So I'm not quite done yet, but still excited about it. Small, but a start.
I've been involved with a group called CEPET, or Centro de Periodismo y Etica Publica (For English speakers, that's Center for Journalism and Public Ethics. For Spanish speakers, sorry about the lack of accent marks. Look for future blog/bitch on Windows Vista.)
Anyway, this group is really cool, and you can read more about it at www.cepet.org. (There's a button on the left side for English translation.) Their mission, for those who don't care to go to the site, is to promote professional standards, training and ethics in Mexican journalism, freedom of expression, and to protect victims and prevent attacks and threats on same. Right now, Mexico is the second most dangerous country for journalists, following only Iraq. It's an interesting time here: just as Mexican journalists are learning to use relatively new transparency laws (more or less what would fall under the Freedom of Information Act in the US), there are unprecedented numbers of attacks and threats against journalists and media outlets by narcotraficantes and politicians, business owners and other powerful people who may fall in the crosshairs of an investigation. Because the tradition of advocacy/investigative journalism is not as strong here (though there are fabulous exceptions to this), and because, right now, politicians and police officers are also being targeted in greater numbers, those attacks are not perceived in quite the same way they would be in the US. (Though these days, as we seem to blithely ignore and abandon the free press as it was once conceived, I guess that's not exactly true about US perception. Look south of the border for an interesting picture of what could happen, one day, to us, if we don't exercise those rights we take for granted.)
So, enough of the rant....what did you do, girl? Here's what: I wrote my first grant proposal! It's to help fund a national alert system for attacks on freedom of expression. We'll see whether we get it. I was so thrilled to hit the send button today, but then I learned that I also have to translate it into Spanish. So I'm not quite done yet, but still excited about it. Small, but a start.
# posted by Anne @ 9:14 PM 
