In a room of the European Parliament crowded with young journalists, the war correspondent David Beriain said genuinely: “when people are shooting each other, it’s difficult to be in the middle”. Beriain’s intervention in the opening panel of the seminar for young journalists “Nothing is Impossible: Reporting on Human Rights and International Conflict” left many young journalists wondering about how to better report from conflict zones and to better cover human rights.
Objectivity in war reporting, transparency, covering human rights violations were issues sixty young European journalists came to find out more about in the European Parliament in Brussels on 18-20 October 2011.
For three intense days they met war correspondents, international journalism specialists, human rights activists, representative of international NGOs and found answer to questions such as: what is the relationship between media and human rights? Is media objectivity in conflict zones impossible?
Media is interested in human rights because without them they wouldn’t be able to do their job, explained Aidan White, international journalism specialist. Objectivity is hard to reach in conflict, young journalists found out. But it is not an impossible task. “Be a journalist! Talk to everybody! Being too close to one side is too close to propaganda”, concluded David Beriain.
The 60 young journalists had the chance to create media together in five workshops: print, photo, TV, radio and multimedia. For one and a half days the participants worked together assiduously to produce the final outcomes presented on this website.
“I have learned a lot more than I was expecting”, said one participant. “It was intense, but it was all worth it”.
The workshop for young journalists “Nothing is impossible: Reporting on Human Rights and International Conflicts” was organised by the European Parliament and the European Youth Press. The event has been organised annually since 2007.