In the 2010-2011 academic year, the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies was awarded funding from the Social Science Research Council to support Coverage in Context, a public online curricular program that supports the training of aspiring journalists in the approaches of interdisciplinary Middle Eastern Studies.
Over the past decade, interdisciplinary Middle East Studies has expanded tremendously. Likewise, and particularly since 9/11, journalistic coverage of the region has skyrocketed. However, these two growing sets of experts have not been in regular and meaningful communication with each other, nor are there enough programs and curricular materials to support the training of experts conversant in the languages and approaches of both journalism and Middle East Studies. Through Coverage in Context: Media and the Middle East, the Center aim to address these gaps. In collaboration with the Arthur L. Carter Program in Journalism, the Center co-hosted a five "webisode" series featuring conversations between innovative and media-aware academics as well as experience journalists who have consistently produced coverage of the region within its complex historical and political context(s). Each module addressed the analytical, theoretical, and practical concerns of journalists as well as academics.
Coverage in Context
The webisodes(taped in 2010-2011) covered five themes:
1) The Past in the Present (Palestine) with historian Zachary Lockman and cartoon journalist Joe Sacco
On Objectivity and Truth
On Documents and Footnotes
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Understanding Identity (Iraq, Jordan, Yemen) with print journalism Anthony Shadid and political scientist Jillian Schwedler
On Getting the Story Right
On the Formation and Manipulation of Identity
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3) Arab Public Opinion with editorial columnist Rami Khoury and political scientist Shibley Telhami
The Arab Street?
Public Humiliation
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Authoritarianism and Resistance (Iran) with journalists Borzou Daragahi and Roza Eftekhari and policy analyst Farideh Farhi
Challenging the Narrative
Revolution Redux?
Social Movements and Social Media
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5) A Changing Middle East with political scientist and blogger March Lynch and author/playwright/screenwriter Lawrence Wright
The End of the Old Storyline
A New Arab Politics
Visit Marc Lynch's Scrapbook