Monday 4th of March the MEKK group invited five presenters to an inspirational seminar. The idea is to share both academic research and journalistic work and together discuss project possibilities, journalistic experiences, conflict and freedom expression and on what platforms we can use to share research like film, radio and exhibitions.
Samson Tewolde, journalist from Eritrea, shared strong and personal experiences on the consequences of touching the limits for freedom of speech in his home country. Samson is currently living in Fredrikstad, Norway and work as a freelance journalist. Several private media was established in Eritrea between 1999-2000, but from 2001 there has been a crackdown on private media and investigative journalism.
Trond Idås, adviser from The Norwegian Union of Journalists, presented findings from a survey in 2017 about sexual harassment among Norwegian journalists. Idås underlined that this is the first survey ever on this subject among journalist in Norway, and the findings reveals a huge problem. One of the mayor challenges is that people who experience harassment do not go forward with it.
Mubashar Hasan from Bangladesh is currently in Norway as a guest-researcher. He studies Religion and Politics, Sports and Politics, Music and Politics, Democracy and Bangladesh. Hasan has paid a painful price for asking dangerous questions in Bangladesh. He shared his personal story of how he was disappeared in Bangladesh for 44 days.
MEKK-member Ingrid Fadnes presented two works on feminism from different perspectives. One of them is a radio-documentary called «In the footsteps of Elsa Laula – 100 years of sami struggle», a documentary in four episodes based on interviews with 23 sami women. And the magazine «feminism in Latin-America», a dialog between feminist from different geographies. The intention behind both works is to create a broader dialog between feminists, including decolonization, class, race and the multiple experiences of resistance.
MEKK-member, Anna M. Grøndahl Larsen defended her thesis: Reporting extremism and the threat of terrorism in the digital age: News journalism and the boundaries of inclusion and representation, in November last year. She was supposed to share some of her work at the seminar, but were not able to make it.
To end a very good and inspiring seminar we gathered for a nice dinner at professor Kristin Orgerets house.
