July 23, 2001

WKU, Internews Training International Journalists

Bowling Green, Ky. - Ten radio journalists from Indonesia will arrive in Bowling Green this weekend for a three-week training program at Western Kentucky University.

The International Journalist and Media Management Training Program is a collaboration between Western's Public Broadcasting, the School of Journalism and Broadcasting and Internews Network. Internews is an international nonprofit organization that supports open media worldwide and is responsible for training more than 16,000 journalists in emerging democracies in the past decade.

"The basic goal is that through this project we're supporting the development of democracy in a country such as Indonesia," said Jerry Barnaby, director of Public Broadcasting and project director.

The partnership between Internews and Western has created a one-of-a-kind program to train independent and responsible journalists for emerging democracies like Indonesia and Cambodia, which will send journalists to Western later this year, he said.

The two-year project is being funded by a $2 million grant administered through the U.S. Agency for International Development. U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was instrumental in securing the funding for the program. "He's always been very supportive of having a strong, independent, non-state-owned media," Barnaby said.

During the intensive three-week program, training topics will include the role of journalism in a democracy, ethics, news writing, news judgment and production techniques. The participants also will produce and broadcast news programs in their native language on WWHR (91.7 FM), Western's studio radio station.

Later this year, WKU instructors will travel to Indonesia for 10 days for followup training and evaluation. This fall, station managers from Indonesia will come to Bowling Green for a two-week training session.

The project will showcase Western's award-winning School of Journalism and Broadcasting and Public Broadcasting service. Employees of Western's public radio and television stations, its journalism and broadcasting faculty and other journalists will participate in the training program, he said.

"The huge benefit for Western, for public broadcasting and for the school is that we're on the leading edge of training international journalists," Barnaby said.

The project's ultimate goal is to build a center at Western that would provide year-round training for international journalists, he said.

"We want to be sure the journalists leave here understanding how this all happened and why it's important and that they then can go back and apply what we've taught them," Barnaby said. "They then can have an impact on their country in a positive way just as we hope our journalists - the professionals, the faculty and the students who go through here -- can have a positive impact on our country."

The Indonesia broadcasters are scheduled to complete their three-week training on Aug. 18.

For more information, contact Jerry Barnaby by phone at 1-800-599-2424 or by email at jerry.barnaby@wku.edu. Additional information on the project is available online at www.wkyu.org.

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