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CNN World Report: Uncovering global news
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Reporter Melissa Lopez says she will never forget the faces of children left crying in a Philippine village following a terrorist bombing. The blast killed many of the adults in Camp AbuBakre, and Lopez herself missed the explosion by just a few minutes. The 22-year-old reporter was on a mission with a clear objective: Navigate the dangerous route to the heart of a rebel Muslim camp on the Philippine Island of Mindanao to get exclusive video and the story behind the violence.
"Because I am young and Catholic, I had to build trust with the rebels so they would talk to me," she says. "I had to be objective." Lopez and her news crew risked their lives to gather a story they felt was important to tell. Normally, the story might have aired only on a local Philippine news channel, but Lopez's involvement with CNN's World Report made it possible to tell her story to the world. International forumCNN World Report, a program that airs daily on CNN International and weekends on CNN, provides television viewers around the world with the opportunity to see other countries as they see themselves. Since its debut in 1987, CNN World Report has carried more than 23,000 reports from more than 240 television news organizations in 140 countries.
In addition, World Report provides journalistic training to news professionals from around the globe. The International Professional Program (IPP) pairs World Report contributors with CNN news crews and producers for a four-week training program at CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. More than 300 journalists have participated in the program so far. "Even before I went to college I wanted to train at CNN," says Lopez. "Working with CNN has made me realize that people here (at CNN) treat the news fairly." She says the environment in the IPP program is one of objectivity. "As long as you can deliver the job," Lopez says, "you're good. They (producers) are also very frank about your work." For some international journalists, the opportunity to network with each other at the annual World Report Contributors Conference -- held this week in Atlanta and Washington -- is key to growth in their profession. "This one week is so important for me," says journalist Pieter Landman from the Netherlands. "I've made so many friends here." It is a shock, Landman says, to see how other journalists must struggle to get information while he can freely report the news of his nation. "You have to navigate the edges," he says of colleagues in other areas of the world. The yearly conference allows journalists from all over the globe to communicate with each other on an equal basis. Every year, the Contributor Conference features panel discussions and presentations by world leaders. This year, former United States President Jimmy Carter and the Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were two of the featured speakers. Award winning storiesWorld Report also uses the conference to hand out awards for some of the outstanding international reports received each year. Lopez won first place in the Best News Reporting category for her report on the bombing in Camp AbuBakre. "I am happy being a journalist," says Lopez. "You can be there when history is happening right before your eyes. The experience is incomparable to reading it (history) in books." Click to the right to see some of the award winning news reports filed by journalists from around the world. RELATED STORY: CNN Programs RELATED SITES: Online Journalism Review | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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