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Reporting Human Rights: A Study of News Representations and Journalist Practices

Fri, June 10, 12:30 to 13:45, Fukuoka Hilton, Grand Foyer

Abstract

This paper examines the representation of human rights in the news and the production practices that determine human rights reporting. Drawing on a systematic examination of mainstream television’s news contents and practices, and based on interviews with journalists, the paper analyses the coverage of human rights issues in different levels of depth by looking at motivations and limitations, resources and editorial choices. The research unveils how proximity is now being re-shaped as a news value and reinforced by the surrounding context of the financial crisis. Therefore, proximity now is both empathetic and forced: on one hand, there is a growing and persistent interest in human rights matters at a local or national level; but on the other hand, as financial cuts are applied to newsrooms, preventing reporters from travelling overseas, journalists have no choice but to look at news events at home. In this sense, the distance to remote human rights causes is increasing. From the journalists’ perspective, this inclination is undermining the possibility of a global understanding of human rights causes, but also highlighting the need to expose sensitive situations nearby.

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