University News Last updated 08 May 2013
A senior staff member from Birmingham City University’s School of Media has been appointed by the Council of Europe/EU to play a role in a new European initiative.
Entitled ‘Mediane – Media in Europe for Diversity Inclusiveness’, this new initiative is designed to improve the way news reporting includes the diversities of European society.
Diane Kemp, who heads the University’s postgraduate broadcast journalism courses, has been named as the lead consultant for the Council of Europe/EU’s Mediane Project, which aims to increase the amount of inclusive reporting in newsrooms across their member states. The project is being run under the council’s policies on living together and intercultural dialogue.
Diane’s appointment follows her involvement in previous Council of Europe initiatives which included Birmingham City University hosting a European forum last June on diversity, non-discrimination and sport media coverage, bringing together editors, journalists and sports people from across Europe.
Diane said: “I’m really excited to be part of this valuable work. The Mediane project will run from now to the end of 2014 and will involve work exchanges with individuals spending time at a similar media organisation or training institution and then hosting their partner for a return visit, 10 ‘encounters’ across Europe and a Media Index to help journalists, trainers and media managers improve their abilities to include diversity in their production.”
Mediane also involves four partner groups - the European Journalism Federation, the European Journalism Training Association, the Community Media Forum Europe and Media Animation, a media literacy organisation facilitating a European network on this issue.
The Council of Europe’s Mediane Manager, Reynald Blion said: “Today, what is most important is to implement truly inclusive ways of designing and producing media content. In Europe, many efforts have been done by the media and their professionals. But the challenge is to make diversities listened to and not simply heard. This is why, today, a new step towards diversity inclusiveness is needed in production, journalism training or editorial management. ”