{"id":67025,"date":"2006-05-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/cnns-amanpour-says-vigorous-journalism-leads-to-reforms-around-world\/"},"modified":"2006-05-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-08T00:00:00","slug":"cnns-amanpour-says-vigorous-journalism-leads-to-reforms-around-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2006\/05\/cnns-amanpour-says-vigorous-journalism-leads-to-reforms-around-world\/","title":{"rendered":"CNN\u2019s Amanpour says vigorous journalism leads to reforms around world"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tAddresses URI journalism supporters<\/p>\n


\n\tKINGSTON, R. I. — May 8, 2006 — Without a robust, vigorous journalism profession, democracy won\u2019t be vigorous and robust, CNN\u2019s Christiane Amanpour told a group of University of Rhode Island journalism supporters.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe award-winning Amanpour helped ensure that journalism at URI remains robust when she spoke last week at The Providence Journal during a program to build support for three new URI Journalism endowment funds.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe native of Iran and 1983 graduate of the URI journalism program came to Kingston in 1980 quite by accident, but URI \u201cchanged my life forever, and it has a deep, deep, deep place in my heart.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI am really, really thrilled to hear about the efforts to expand and rejuvenate this department at URI,\u201d said Amanpour. \u201cWherever I go, people look to the United States and U.S. journalism as the model.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAmanpour spoke before a gathering of URI officials and faculty members, publishers, editors and reporters, many of whom are graduates of the University\u2019s journalism program, members of the Rhode Island Press Association, and the Rhode Island Broadcasters Association to help raise funds for visiting lecturers, student scholarships and a journalism speaker series. The effort is being led by the press association, in conjunction with the Division of University Advancement and the broadcasters association.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe goal is to build permanent endowments for each of the funds as part of the next URI capital campaign. The University offers the only bachelor\u2019s degree in journalism in Rhode Island.<\/p>\n


\n\tIn her 23 years at CNN, Amanpour said in many parts of the world she has seen that journalism is part of grass roots movements to open societies and governments. Amanpour said journalism is not just a business, and that its focus should be service to the truth. In today\u2019s fragmented media world, quality and seriousness are becoming important niches, she said.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be paying such attention to day-to-day ratings,\u201d said the Emmy and Peabody award winner who started her career at WJAR\u2019s Channel 10 in Providence.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI have been saddened to see our profession diluted, trivialized and sensationalized, and we need to seize it back. (The business) needs to make a profit, but there is a limit. This is a public trust.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAmanpour said news and journalism should not be competing against reality shows. \u201cJournalism is not an automatic fame machine or an automatic money machine (for journalists). It takes hard work and it\u2019s risky. It\u2019s not popular to tell the truth.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI deplore the U.S. government\u2019s and federal courts\u2019 assault on journalism and journalists,\u201d she said referring to the action of jailing reporters when they don\u2019t reveal confidential sources. \u201cI come from Iran where there was no freedom of expression. It is completely inappropriate. Not only is it bad, it\u2019s dangerous. We are the eyes and ears of the public.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tIn response to a question about what young journalists need to succeed, Amanpour said they need to understand what journalism is; they must be fearless, hard workers and they must understand true objectivity.<\/p>\n


\n\tShe also said that strong journalism requires resources. \u201cIt\u2019s not cheap to cover Iraq or other countries, and it\u2019s not cheap to do investigative reporting,\u201d Amanpour said.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cGood journalism enriches our communities, our governments and our citizens,\u201d Amanpour said. <\/p>\n


\n\tThose interested in supporting the URI Journalism Visiting Lecture Fund, Student Scholarship or Speaker Series should contact Thomas Zorabedian, senior development officer, URI College of Arts and Sciences, at 401-874-2853 or zman@advance.uri.edu.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Addresses URI journalism supporters KINGSTON, R. I. — May 8, 2006 — Without a robust, vigorous journalism profession, democracy won\u2019t be vigorous and robust, CNN\u2019s Christiane Amanpour told a group of University of Rhode Island journalism supporters. The award-winning Amanpour helped ensure that journalism at URI remains robust when she spoke last week […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}