Saskia Rowley
-1
archive,paged,author,author-wacc_sr,author-2,paged-38,author-paged-38,wp-theme-bridge,wp-child-theme-WACC-bridge,bridge-core-3.3.4.2,qodef-qi--no-touch,qi-addons-for-elementor-1.9.2,qode-page-transition-enabled,ajax_fade,page_not_loaded,,qode-title-hidden,qode-smooth-scroll-enabled,qode-child-theme-ver-1.0.0,qode-theme-ver-30.8.8.2,qode-theme-bridge,qode_header_in_grid,qode-wpml-enabled,wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-8.5,vc_responsive,elementor-default,elementor-kit-41156

Nyon (Switzerland) 2020

At the 51st Festival Visions du réel Nyon (April 17 – May 2, 2020), the interreligious watched and discussed the 14 films of the competition for long films due the Covid-19 situation online and awarded its Prize of CHF 5’000, donated by the Swiss Catholic Church, the Reformed Churches in the French-speaking part Switzerland (CER) and its Media Department Média-pro, and the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, to the film Off the Road / Fuera del camino directed by von José Permar (Mexico/USA 2020).

There is nothing new about hate speech. What has changed is the mode of delivery. In Nazi Germany, it was state-controlled newspapers and radio. At the time of the genocide in Rwanda, it was a radio station run by the Hutu government. Today, it is social media, until recently largely unregulated.

No apologies for quoting at length from “The Media Isn’t Ready to Cover Climate Apartheid” by Michelle García (The Nation, 17 June 2020). While praising the public service ethic of many media outlets, whose coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic has been exemplary, she notes an apparent reticence or inability to delve in depth into its impact on the most marginalized. She also questions media preparedness for the greater crisis to follow:

A group of 153 academics, writers, and social activists published a letter in Harper’s Magazine (7 July 2020) expressing concern that “a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments” are tending “to weaken norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity”.

[caption id="attachment_26345" align="alignleft" width="203"] Neville Jayaweera[/caption] WACC notes with sadness the death of its former Director of Research and Planning, Neville Jayaweera, at the age of 89. Appointed by Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake, to be both Chairman and Director-General of the then Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation in 1966,...

The Philippines is facing another crackdown on media freedoms. [caption id="attachment_26326" align="alignleft" width="237"] Maria Ressa. Photo: Lev Radin/Shutterstock[/caption] On June 15, 2020, a court in the capital Manila, convicted former CNN journalist Maria Ressa and former Rappler writer Reynaldo Santos Jr. of cyber libel for publishing an article that implicated a prominent businessman who was allegedly involved in human trafficking and drug smuggling.