SALZBURG, Austria (Aug 13) — “One of the problems for us all is that we are not, and cannot often be aware of what’s going on that the camera hasn’t focused on,” said Academy-award winning actress Vanessa Redgrave in a conversation to an audience of students attending the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change, a program jointly led by the Salzburg Global Seminar, in Salzburg, Austria, and the International Center for Media & Public Agenda at the University of Maryland, College Park. “Courage comes partly from a feeling that you really are expressing something that is the truth.’

Speaking with students and faculty from five continents and fifteen countries, Ms. Redgrave drew connections between the responsibilities of an actor and those of journalists. “When I was told today about the main fundamental ground on which these courses in which you’re all taking part are based—Media and Global Change—I immediately remembered the Latin slogan that flew on the flag above Shakespeare’s Globe Theater… Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem. ‘All the world moves the actor’ is actually what I think is the direct translation, as opposed to ‘All the world’s a stage.’ All the world moves the actor, by which can be considered not only the professional actor, but the individual—the individuals who find themselves in the world.”
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The Philip Merrill College of Journalism broke ground on May 22 on the $30 million John S. and James L. Knight Hall.

Merrill Dean Tom Kunkel, University President C.D. “Dan” Mote Jr., Maryland House Speaker Michael Busch and other dignitaries and donors celebrated the start of construction with a private luncheon and a public ceremony that afternoon.
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Many of the area’s top sports journalists gathered at the University of Maryland April 19, 2008 for the first Sports Journalism Workshop, sponsored by the Shirley Povich Professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

More than 60 area high school and college sports journalists attended the event and learned about topics ranging from layout and design to photography to column writing to copy editing.
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Award-winning journalists will discuss the
techniques, hazards and rewards of covering the most difficult stories
of our time when they gather in Shoemaker 2102 beginning at 2 p.m. Nov. 19.

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Five of the nation’s top journalists, sports reporters and TV personalities gathered at the University of Maryland last night for the second annual Shirley Povich Symposium, sponsored by the Philip Merrill College of Journalism.More than 250 people were in the audience as former Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee, columnist and ESPN host Michael Wilbon, Post columnist Sally Jenkins, ESPN’s Kevin Blackistone and TV’s Maury Povich, the son of the symposium’s namesake, discussed the legacy of Shirley Povich. The Washington Post sports writer and columnist was one of American sports’ most influential voices through an extraordinary 75-year career.

Read the full release here.

This year’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism Research Colloquium is scheduled for Wednesday, April 11. The guest speaker will be James S. Ettema, professor of communication studies at Northwestern University, who will speak on “Soldiers’ Stories: Representation of Warfare and the Critique of Empathy.”
Ettema is the editor, with D. Charles Whitney, of Individuals in Mass Media Organizations: Creativity and Constraint, and Audience Making: How the Media Create the Audience; and author, with Theodore L. Glasser, of Custodians of Conscience: Investigative Journalism and Public Virtue.

Professor Ettema, received his B.A. and M. A. degrees from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, worked as a writer, filmmaker, and photographer before completing his doctoral studies at the University of Michigan. He is currently director of Northwestern’s doctoral program in Media, Technology, and Society.

The research colloquium will be held in Room 2114 of the Journalism Building from 12:30 - 2:00 p.m.

The College arranged several discussion sessions Feb. 19 for 17 journalists from Mexico, part of a four-day Study Tour on New Media Trends. The program was organized by the International Center for Journalists in Washington, D.C., and sponsored by the media department of the University of Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico. The participants — representing journalism schools and print and broadcast media in the State of Jalisco, heard presentations by College Associate Dean Don Heider and Jan Schaffer, executive director of J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism. They then joined the College’s international Hubert Humphrey Journalism Fellows for a seminar conducted by program director Lucinda Fleeson. The study tour also visited Washingtonpost.com, Voice of America, the U.S. State Department and the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting during their stay in D.C. -FQ

The Philip Merrill College of Journalism’s SPJ Chapter is pleased to announce Alicia Shepard (MA 2002) will return to campus, Tuesday, Feb. 27 to talk about her new book, Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate. Everyone is invited to attend the program which is set for 6:30p in Room 2114 in the Journalism Building.

TerPAC and the Society for Professional Journalists are pleased to present Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning, independent Israeli-Arab journalist who has been covering Palestinian issues in the West Bank and Gaza for over two decades. He began his journalism career as a writer for an official PLO newspaper and now writes for the Jerusalem Post, and works frequently with NBC. As a veteran journalist, he has knowledge of the behind-the-scenes action within the PA and other Palestinian organizations and offers a unique perspective on the middle-east and media coverage of it.

Khaled Abu Toameh
Israeli-Arab reporter for the Jerusalem Post
0220 Jimenez Hall – 7pm on Thursday, Feb. 22