News about the activities of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas
Knight Center Trains 50 Journalists in Drug Trafficking CoverageKnight Center Trains 50 Journalists in Drug Trafficking Coverage
By Paul Alonso
The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas offered the online Spanish-laguage course “Covering Drug Trafficking,” designed by the Colombian journalist Álvaro Sierra. 50 journalists from 12 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean participated in the course.
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Designed specifically for the Knight Center, "Covering Drug Trafficking" was offered for the first time from April 7 – May 4, 2009. 150 journalists applied for the fifty available spots in the class. The free course combined conceptual problems and practical elements to help journalists understand and provide responsible coverage of the complex topic of drug trafficking.
The course explored the following questions:
- Is the business of illegal drugs adequately covered in the media?
- Is it possible to report on drug trafficking, despite the threat to journalists in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil?
- How is drug trafficking covered in other countries with lower risk?
- How does one manage relationships with dangerous sources?
- What are the characteristics of illegal drug trafficking?
- Why are some drugs prohibited?
The course used several tools based on the Moodle platform, like online chat rooms, wikis, and discussion forums. One class project was the creation of a glossary of drug trafficking-related terms. Due to the diversity of the students, the glossary included more than 300 terms used in different countries.
The course covered drug trafficking themes at both the local and global level, at the same time promoting the formation of a social network between the participating journalists, so that could continue their dialogue after the course ended. The social network lets the students share links and resources about drug trafficking worldwide.
The Knight Center issued certificates to the students that satisfactorily completed the course requirements. "Covering Drug Trafficking" will be offered again in the future, and will be announced in the Knight Center newsletter and through other communication channels.
For the instructor, Álvaro Sierra, professor at the University for Peace in San José, Costa Rica and experienced journalist in the coverage of armed conflicts, the course dealt with a “highly complex topic, very politically charged and made up of sub-topics that are rarely covered in sufficient depth.”
Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas: Why is it important to train journalists in drug trafficking coverage?
Álvaro Sierra: In general, existing coverage emphasizes the most scandalous aspects: the violence, the horrendous murders, seizures of drug shipments or briefcases filled with money. However, the large debates about anti-drug policies, monitoring the complexity of drug production and consumption, and the abundant literature on the topic, among other issues, are the subject of little attention. It is a sociological and global problem that is dealt with as a local police issue. The journalists that cover drug trafficking should be the first to take on this complexity, and the course is a tool to achieve this.
Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas: What are the possibilities that online education offers for this topic?
Álvaro Sierra: The internet is an increasingly important part of the lives of a growing number of people. Without a substantive investment, it is the only way to share experiences and knowledge between colleagues from various countries, as we did in the first version of this course, in which journalists from 12 Latin American countries participated. By dedicating several hours a week and having a minimal understanding of internet resources, one can deeply investigate the theme of drug trafficking. What we could do ranged from watching videos of famous Narcocorridos to having conversations via Skype; we read excerpts from books and the professor could be both watched and read. These are possibilities that only the Internet offers and they can be used to enhance learning if you know how to take advantage of them.
Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas: What is the most important thing for journalists to learn about covering drug trafficking?
Álvaro Sierra: I believe that the most important thing is to abandon the emphasis on the local and police aspects of the phenomenon and stop doing inventories of seized cargo and the decapitated heads of Mexicans and Colombians, and deal with the issue as a more vast phenomenon that one should study carefully and steadily, and report on it accordingly. Each country isn’t any more than a cog in a global machine. Current policies don’t represent all the possible options to deal with a phenomena that has been created by a decision (essentially moralist and of religious origins) to prohibit illicit drugs. Mexico, Colombia, Guinea-Bissau are links in a chain. If journalists start to think in this way, coverage will be able to improve substantially – and with it the information that reaches the public and the quality of the public debate about drugs.
The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas was created by Professor Rosental Calmon Alves at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism in August 2002 thanks to a generous donation from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
In 2007, the Knight Center received a new five-year grant from the Knight Foundation to refocus its work as a digital media training center for Latin American and Caribbean journalism, and to expand its efforts to serve as an incubator for new journalism organizations.
Added Jun 15, 15:26, 2009
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