December 10, 2015
Election Coverage and Reform Workshop in Beirut, Lebanon
GCJD joined with the Samir Kassir Foundation and the Lebanese Association for Democratic elections to work with nearly two dozen young journalists based in Lebanon to discuss how to effectively serve the public in this environment.While in Beirut, the trainers also worked for two days with Lebanese social reform NGO’s on messaging their cause to international media outlets. Many Lebanese NGOs believe spurring international pressure is the best strategy to getting things done in their country, and consider it vital to get international coverage of their social movements.
December 5, 2015
Students and staffers at SHSU hold hands during racial unity rally
Sam Houston State students, faculty and staff gathered Thursday morning on the main campus in Huntsville to show support for racial unity. The event, "Hands Across Sam," was hosted by the Global Center for Journalism and Democracy. “In light of the racial tension that we’ve seen on other campuses around the nation, we want to start a discussion here at SHSU to promote understanding and tolerance on our campus,” said Jesse Starkey, program manager at the GCJD.
December 3, 2015
Global Center Hosts #OneSamFam
Racial tensions in America are growing and have recently leaked into college campuses across America. Because of the events at the University of Missouri and other universities around the nation, the Global Center for Journalism and Democracy is hosting their Hands Across Sam event to promote campus unity.
December 3, 2015
“Hands Across Sam” At SHSU Today
The Global Center for Journalism and Democracy will be hosting a “Hands across Sam” event in support of racial unity. As racial tensions rise on other campuses, GCJD will get faculty, staff and students to join together to strive for understanding and tolerance. The event will take place this afternoon at 12:25 in the mall area. The local community is invited to join them.
December 1, 2015
Meet Lex Laas, December GCJD Alumni of the Month
Lex Laas is this month’s GCJD Alumni of the Month. Laas is residing in Houston as a professional actor and director represented by the Page Parks Agency. He recently appeared on HBO’s The Leftovers.
November 17, 2015
GCJD Guest Speaker- Sonia Nazario
There is a fine line between advocacy and journalism, and Sonia Nazario says it took her quite a long time to cross it.The author of the best-selling book Enrique’s Journey detailed how her own journey was impacted by spending time with children trying to get to the United States from Central and South America.
November 13, 2015
Meet Stephen Green, GCJD Alumni of the Month
Stephen Green is this month’s GCJD Alumni of the Month. He currently works at The Courier of Montgomery where he serves as city editor - covering education, politics and city government.
November 11, 2015
GCJD Tackles Immigration
Every semester, the Global Center for Journalism and Democracy looks at the society around them and decides to tackle either a social justice issue that is often overlooked or an issue that has sparked nationally hot conversation.
November 8, 2015
Journalists Visit to Texas continuing to pay off
We love to know we are making a difference. For GCJD, that means seeing journalists we work with use the knowledge and skills they acquired during our trainings. In September, five Lebanese journalists and a representative from our long-standing partner, the Samir Kassir Foundation, visited Houston to learn more about the oil and gas industry. Over the past month, 3 out of the 5 journalists have written stories for their respective Lebanese publications on the oil and gas industry, using knowledge and context they acquired on their visit here as a back drop.
October 27, 2015
Professor's Journalistic Work To Be Featured In Newseum
The Newseum in Washington, D.C., is a museum that provides the public with dynamic, engaging and interactive exhibits that encourage the exploration of stories from the past and present through the eyes of the media, while celebrating the freedoms guaranteed to all Americans by the First Amendment. On Nov. 13, the Newseum will open its “Inside Today’s FBI” exhibit, featuring firsthand accounts concerning the coverage of critical moments for journalists and law enforcement, among those whose stories will be shared will be several from Kelli Arena, Sam Houston State University’s Dan Rather Endowed Professor and founding executive director of the Global Center for Journalism and Democracy.
October 23, 2015
Global Center Series To Tackle Illegal Immigration
An estimated 11 million people reside in the U.S. illegally and more than 1.6 million of those inhabit Texas alone. With numbers like these, there is no doubt that immigration is an issue that personally impacts many. With the presidential campaign season well underway, there are numerous proposals that purport to solve the immigration issues. Because of this, Sam Houston State University’s Global Center for Journalism and Democracy is poised to host a series of events on campus to educate students, faculty and staff about immigration.
October 21, 2015
GCJD Returns from Data Journalism Workshop in China
GCJD put together a group of trainers to head into the country to teach young journalists how to collect, organize, and use data for accurate story telling. The center joined forces with The International Center for Journalists and Tsinghua University, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China.
October 1, 2015
Meet Miranda Leah, GCJD Alumni of the Month
Miranda Leah is an anchor and reporter for KRIS-TV in Corpus Christi. Before graduating from SHSU, Miranda interned for Dan Rather Reports in New York, and worked as a legislative aide at the Texas State Capitol during the 83rd legislative session.
September 30, 2015
GCJD Hosted Free Training for Local Journalists
Local journalists from half a dozen news organizations joined GCJD for a half day workshop aimed at helping journalists better cover law enforcement. Bryan Carlisle, the assistant police chief from Shenandoah, Texas and Patricia Villafranca, special agent with the FBI in Houston shared their knowledge with reporters about how to navigate information gathering and story telling when covering the police beat.
September 26, 2015
GCJD Hosts Lebanese Oil & Gas journalists
A group of journalists from Lebanon made the trek to Huntsville. As part of an ongoing project with the Samir Kassir Foundation, journalists spent the week getting a first hand look at the U.S. oil and gas sector. Journalists met with corporate executives, environmentalists, security experts, and other journalists. They also made several site visits to witness the various stages of oil and gas production in the Houston corridor.
September 19, 2015
GCJD Hosts Polish Visitors
Polish students and journalists visited SHSU's Huntsville campus for a week in September. The Global Center for Journalism and Democracy had worked with the group last year in Poland when it offered a journalism training to help Polish journalists track the flow of European Union funds into local communities. This time, the group wanted to fully explore journalism in the United States, and discuss the hot topics that U.S. journalists are tackling.
September 16, 2015
Visiting students from Poland bring culture and intrigue to SHSU campus
This week, the SHSU campus has had the pleasure of hosting a group of journalism students from Kielce, Poland. The students have been spending the week becoming immersed in all different types of journalism within the university and the community of Huntsville as well as in surrounding cities.
September 13, 2015
GCJD To Offer Free Training To Journalists
Sam Houston State University’s Global Center of Journalism and Democracy will offer a workshop designed to help local journalists and students understand how to better cover the law enforcement beat on Sept. 30 from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Room 202 of the Bill Blackwood LEMIT Building. The workshop will feature presentations by a special agent from the press office of the FBI and a local assistant police chief, who will help those in attendance understand the challenges of getting information during investigations and how to determine what is accurate and what isn't during breaking news.
June 24, 2015
Photos: Three days in Germany and much non-profit-news talk
So, I received a chance to spend three days in Germany this month discussing non-profit journalism. I’d never been to Germany before, beyond a day trip to Dachau, a flight change in Frankfurt, and the Salzburg (Austria) salt-mine tour’s brief underground jaunt across the German border (complete with sets of underground flags). The trip, somehow just last week, turned out well...hours walking around the old East Berlin, now a beautifully free mix of new and old, and a day and change in Magdeburg, a friendly place a train ride from Berlin and home to a ton of history, a day of training and discussion both thoughtful and provocative with super-smart students at Magdeburg-Stendal University, led by their professor and our wonderful Germany-based host, Leigh Love, and several interesting leaders of German non-profit news orgs.
June 21, 2015
9 tips that has Paul Steiger for journalists(German)
The journalism is dead - long live the journalism! Always and yet again it is prayed before us: the profit-oriented journalism of established media houses located in the crisis. The Internet is to blame of course, large daily newspapers about not fighting and to know spite of digitalization to survive, how they should behave in the new market.
June 17, 2015
How to do Investigative Journalism with Chuck Lewis
For three decades, Chuck Lewis has shaped investigative journalism in the US and worldwide. Lewis was an investigative producer for ABC News and the CBS news program 60 Minutes. In 1989, he left 60 Minutes and started the Center for Public Integrity, one of the world's first non-profit investigative newsrooms which recently won a Pulitzer Prize. Lewis also founded the ICIJ that made headlines with its worldwide revelations about #OffshoreLeaks, #LuxLeaks or #SwissLeaks, among others.
June 16, 2015
Lewis speaks about future of nonprofit news in Germany
The nonprofit journalism ecosystem has been increasing overseas with new reporting centers created in recent years in Germany and elsewhere. Charles Lewis, founding executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop and professor at American University, is meeting and speaking with journalists in two cities in Germany this week about nonprofit investigative journalism.
June 9, 2015
From financing to reader loyalty: Workshop on "Non-Profit Journalism" (German)
The Department of communication and media of the University Magdeburg-Stendal and the Global Center for Journalism and Democracy at Sam Houston State University (United States) organized a workshop titled "Nonprofit journalism" for students and interested journalists on June 16, 2015.
Read more on University Magdeburg-Stendal Website>>
May 12, 2015
GCJD Welcomes Fall 2015 Intern
Danielle Martin has been chosen as Fall 2015 intern for the Global Center for Journalism & Democracy (GCJD). Interns play an integral role at GCJD and are involved in every aspect of center business.
May 8, 2015
Freedom and Privacy: The Impossible Equation?
Is it possible to have both freedom and privacy in the digital age? Data collection may be helpful to investigative journalists, researchers or any number of other professions, but what happens when we are targets of data collection? Is there a difference between government surveillance and data gathering by companies like Google and Facebook? Or is the communication between these entities so ubiquitous that whatever we put on the Internet becomes the de facto property of our respective governments?
May 7, 2015
'Freedom and Privacy' at The Beirut Spring Festival 2015
Billions of individuals across the globe live connected. Each person today produces and generates tons of data. The world has already moved to the “Internet of things” era with more connected devices in everyone’s daily life.
May 6, 2015
Panel invitation: “Freedom and Privacy: The Impossible Equation?”
Digital footprints are the traces we leave during our use of the internet. The tools to track them are getting more sophisticated day by day. All our actions in the World Wide Web, whether we like on Facebook, we tweet from Twitter, we create shopping lists on Amazon or we just browse the web for information – all our behavior produces tons of data everyday… But what does this actually mean?
April 29, 2015
SHSU organization to honor missing journalists
In August of 2012, Houston native and freelance journalist Austin Tice was kidnapped while covering the bloody and violent Syrian civil war. Almost three years after his disappearance, Tice’s whereabouts remain unknown, and no organization has claimed responsibility for his kidnapping. Tice is one of many journalists from all over the globe who has been kidnapped while covering the the war in the Middle East.
April 27, 2015
GCJD Executive Director attends Logan Symposium
GCJD Executive Director and Dan Rather Chair Kelli Arena attended the Logan Symposium in Investigative Reporting conference at Berkeley , where she participated as a mentor for journalism graduate students there.
April 27, 2015
GCJD to bring press freedom movement to campus
Press Freedom often goes ignored in the United States, but it comes at a high price: 20 journalists have been killed this year, and approximately 40 remain missing.Each year, May 3 is set aside to remember journalists who risk their lives every day in the line of duty. Besides paying tribute, World Press Freedom Day is also dedicated to celebrating the fundamental principles of press freedom and to assess the state of press freedom throughout the world.
April 27, 2015
GCJD joins fight to find missing Texas journalist
Debra and Marc Tice have been living a nightmare for more than two years. Their son, freelance journalist Austin Tice has been missing in Syria since August 2012.“It has just become what our life is, that’s just it,” Marc Tice said.
April 26, 2015
KELLI ARENA: Journalists put lives on line to shine light on truth
CBS recently broadcast the most graphic video in the network’s history. Bodies of infants and toddlers gasping for air were shown as they were sprayed like insects with poison. The journalists who caught the horror on camera had risked their lives to bear witness to those Sarin gas attacks in Syria. If they hadn’t been there to document it, would the world ever believe human beings were capable of such evil? Or would they say the stories were made up, much like Iran does when the holocaust comes up?
Read more on the Huntsville Item>>
April 20, 2015
GCJD: The nonprofit business model
Nonprofit news venues are cropping up around the globe, often filling in gaps left by cutbacks in traditional journalism. GCJD will explore the nonprofit model with pioneers in the field at a conference in Germany on June 16. The center is partnering with University of Applied Sciences, Magdeburg-Stendal to work with professional journalists, students and media professionals interested in, or participating in nonprofit journalism.
April 20, 2015
Freedom and Privacy: The Impossible Equation?
On May 7th, GCJD will partner with Skeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom in May to host a panel discussion, “Freedom and Privacy: The Impossible Equation?” in Beirut, Lebanon as part of the Samir Kassir Foundation’s (SKF) 10 year anniversary. GCJD has partnered with SKF on several projects since its inception and is proud to take part in the anniversary celebration.
April 20, 2015
SHGCJD: commemoration World Press Freedom Day
40 journalists remain missing around the globe. Houston native Austin Tice is one of them. He was kidnapped while reporting in Syria in 2012, and his whereabouts are unknown. To commemorate World Press Freedom Day, GCJD will work to re-focus attention on Tice and other missing journalists.
April 17, 2015
Global Center To Celebrate World Press Freedom Day
Texas Native and journalist Austin Tice has been missing since 2012. He was kidnapped, but no group has claimed responsibility. He was last heard of while reporting in Syria, the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. At least 81 journalists have been killed there covering the unrest according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. GCJD will join the #FreeAustinTice campaign to keep Tice’s plight in the spotlight. The center will use the celebration of World Press Freedom Day as a venue.
April 17, 2015
Zoriah Miller joins GCJD
GCJD is pleased to announce that award winning photographer Zoriah Miller is joining the center in the role of “distinguished journalist”. GCJD executive director Kelli Arena says “It was a pleasure working with Zoriah Miller when he last teamed up with the center. His depth of experience will truly be valuable to the SHSU community”.
April 9, 2015
Zak Ebrahim Promotes Peace at Sam Houston State University
Zak Ebrahim remembers when his closest childhood friend was just ten years old. The boy’s father had ripped from his home in the United States to fight in the war in Afghanistan. When he returned, Ebrahim says the boy was a shadow of his former self, and never recovered. “This is what happens when we use violence as a resolution of conflict”, Ebrahim says.
April 9, 2015
I am not my father: terrorist’s son promotes peace
Peace and non-violence were key points of a speech made by the son of a man who planned a deadly attack on American soil.Zak Ebrahim is the son of El-Sayyid Nasair, who is currently serving six consecutive life sentences in prison after shooting and killing the leader of the Jewish Defense League. Even more infamously, from prison Ebrahim’s father coauthored the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.
April 6, 2015
’93 WTC bombing planner’s son to visit campus, preach peace
The Global Center for Journalism and Democracy will bring the son of a terrorist to campus to spread the idea of peace. Zak Ebrahim, son of terrorist El-Sayed Nosair who attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, has dedicated his life to overcome the assumptions people have of him because of his father and to spread the importance of peace worldwide.
April 4, 2015
‘Terrorist’s Son’ to discuss experience, peace
The Terrorists Son: My Path to Peace, a Sam Houston State University Global Center for Journalism and Democracy guest speaker series presentation, will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Lowman Student Center Theater. The presentation will also be livestreamed to SHSUs The Woodlands Center Room 110.
Read more on Monitoring, Exposing & Fighting Against Anti-Semitism and Racism>>
April 2, 2015
‘Terrorist’s Son’ to discuss experience, peace
Two-time TED Talk speaker Zak Ebrahim will share his stories and experiences of growing up as the son of a terrorist and the path he took in preaching the message of peace on Tuesday (April 7).
April 1, 2015
A New Priority in American Colleges
Suicide claims the lives of 1,100 college students every year. Depression is the number one reason students drop out of school.
April 1, 2015
Vihangam Yoga meditation workshop in coordination with Global Center of Journalism and Democracy, in Texas.
Workshop conducted to bring awareness on mental health and healthy mind as one of benefits of Meditation.
March 27, 2015
SHSU groups kick off Mental Health Week with multiple events, talks
To help shine a light on this important issue, the Global Center for Journalism and Democracy at Sam Houston State University hosted a series of events and discussion during the group’s Mental Health Awareness week on the SHSU campus.
March 23, 2015
GCJD, Active Minds collaborate for Mental Health Awareness Week
As a part of Mental Health Awareness Week, the Global Center for Journalism and Democracy workshop class collaborated with the newfound Sam Houston State University chapter of Active minds to host a screening of “Silver Linings Playbook” last night.
February 26, 2015
Winner of the Photo Essay Contest, Kristy Kendall
Kristy Kendall, SHSU senior and cheerleader took first place in GCJD’s photo essay contest. More than three dozen students entered the contest, but judges unanimously ranked Kristy’s photo “Pure” as the best. As a result, she won a GoPro camera and dinner with esteemed photojournalist Zoriah Miller.
February 25, 2015
SHSU's GlobalCenter for Journalism & Democracy "Goes Local" with Our Journalism Teachers and Zoriah Miller & Dr. Marcus Funk
Through a collaboration between Sam Houston State University's GlobalCenter for Journalism and Democracy (GCJD) and our Region 6 Education Service Center, journalism teachers from around our region got the chance to learn from experts in the field, enjoy a day of professional development and be inspired.
February 9, 2015
SKeyes and GCJD Host Conference on Covering Security Sector Institutions
The tense relationship between news media and the security sector has been especially prevalent in the last few years as the Snowden files catapulted the conversation about the methods of security institutions into the public sphere. Similarly, the Leveson Inquiry in Britain has also highlighted that some media institutions are capable of breaching the public trust.
February 2, 2015
Al-Massira Report on Beirut Journalist Training (Arabic)
Arabic language magazine, Al-Massira covered the Security Sector training hosted by GCJD in Beirut in January.
January 29, 2015
Award-Winning Photojournalist To Give Snapshot Of Experiences
He’s captured the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan; he’s collected images from the 2013 riots in Bangladesh; and he’s traveled along the Gulf Coast to record the damage caused by the 2010 BP oil spill. As an award-winning photojournalist, Zoriah Miller has documented some of the most horrific human crises in both developing countries and around the world.
January 28, 2015
Military and Law Enforcement Training in Beirut
Security forces and journalists are often at odds, even though they both serve the public. GCJD co-hosted a conference in Beirut to work with both sides to help increase understanding, transparency and to ultimately better inform the public about important security issues.
January 27, 2015
GCJD Announces Collaboration on Global Education Conference
GCJD is teaming up with Sam Houston State University's Center for International Education on their second annual Global Education Issues conference by bringing in keynote speaker Christi Hegranes, the Executive Director of the Global Press Institute
January 26, 2015
European Union Report on GCJD Beirut Training
Organized in partnership with the Thomson Foundation and the Global Centre for Journalism and Democracy, the Samir Kassir Eyes Centre for Media and Cultural Freedom organized a three-day workshop co-funded by the European Union from 23 to 25 January in Beirut entitled “Covering Security Sector Institutions”. It attracted representatives from the Lebanese security agencies, media professionals and Lebanese and international journalists.
Global Center for Journalism and Democracy
Dan Rather Communications Building, Room 201, Huntsville, TX 77340