Journalism under the microscope

Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Journalism under the microscope

News reporting of the so-called “terror” raids by New Zealand police, news media freedom of speech in Fiji, and how old-fashioned journalism helped break the United States Enron scandal are topics for analysis at a journalism conference in Wellington next week.

Final registrations are being accepted for the three-day Journalism Education Association conference, to be hosted by the University’s Department of Communication and Journalism and opened by Prime Minister Helen Clark on Monday.

High profile speakers include TV3 Political Editor Duncan Garner, Dominion Post editor Tim Pankhurst, NZ Listener’s political correspondent Jane Clifton and Radio New Zealand Mediawatch host Colin Peacock.

Keynote speaker is Bethany McLean, a New York journalist who played a major role in exposing corrupt energy company Enron.

Ms McLean was the first journalist to raise doubts about Enron in a national publication. Covering the story for Fortune magazine in 2001, she challenge the energy giant over its accounting practices and questioned whether it was the powerhouse many assumed it to be.

She co-wrote the book The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, later made into an Academy Award-nominated documentary, in which she appears.

For registration and more information: http://communication.massey.ac.nz/jeanz.html

ENDS

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