Syracuse University will host 17 journalists from Europe and the Middle East in April as part of the Department of State’s inaugural Edward R. Murrow Journalism Program.

The program at SU is sponsored by both the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

One of the reasons the Department of State has invited the journalists to the United States is for diplomatic purposes.

‘With all of the issues regarding foreign policy in the Middle East, it is important to influence the thinking of these journalists,’ said Col. Bill Smullen, director of National Security Studies and a professor at Maxwell.

The journalists, who will visit SU April 5 to 12, are 130 professionals from around the world participating in the program, Smullen said.

Fourteen of the visiting journalists are from Arabic-speaking countries in the Middle East, and three are from Denmark, Poland and Turkey, Smullen said.

Six other universities, including the University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Kentucky, will be hosting participants.

‘SU is unique because we are the only university sponsoring the program through both the journalism and public affairs schools,’ Smullen said.

The visiting journalists will be welcomed on April 5 with a reception open to students and faculty from both Maxwell and Newhouse, Smullen said. They will also attend luncheons with guest speakers including Senior Editor of Newsweek magazine Jonathan Alter and Walter Pincus of The Washington Post.

‘Maxwell will provide the content and Newhouse the meat-and-potatoes skills,’ said Joel Kaplan, an investigative journalism professor at Newhouse.

From Maxwell, they will learn about issues such as the First Amendment and ethics, Kaplan said. The journalists will then apply these concepts with the reporting skills they will learn from Newhouse.

‘The journalists will have a steady diet of interaction with faculty and students from both Newhouse and Maxwell,’ Smullen said.

Nate Mattise, a sophomore economics major, said Newhouse students should appreciate that the pressures journalists face in a free country are much less severe than those in the Middle East.

‘We should be able to stay strong when it comes to issues of protecting sources and new restrictions on freedom of the press,’ Mattise said.

Kaplan said he hopes the visiting journalists will learn as much from SU as students and faculty will learn from them.

‘With the War in Iraq and the (United States) being criticized, this is an opportunity to explain to foreign journalists how we do things here,’ Kaplan said.

Published on February 28, 2006 at 12:00 pm