The Media, The Refugee Crisis and the UNYP Community

On Thursday November 5th the University of New York in Prague hosted a PULSE lecture on the issues and controversies that journalists face in reporting the current refugee crisis.

The lecture was delivered by journalism Professor Benjamin Cunningham, Central European correspondent for the Economist, and regular contributor to SME, the Guardian and Politico, to a packed room of professors and students from all majors.

Focusing on a number of key themes related to the refugee crisis, Prof. Cunningham discussed linguistic aspects (the use of terminology in describing the afflicted), as well as the most typical approaches of media reporting, such as the personalization of stories, ‘triggers’ of stories, and news values related to news reports on the crisis in general.

The complexity of reporting on the topic, and the ambitions of various stakeholders were discussed by all in an extended Q&A session at the end, allowing for fresh perspectives and concerns from interdisciplinary perspectives.