By Betsy Model, President
The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) is currently seeking interested parties to both host and exchange-travel with journalists from Pakistan and journalists from Georgia.
Pakistan: A three-year, multi-phase program will bring 128 Pakistani media professionals to the United States and send 30 U.S. journalists to Pakistan. Journalists will study each others’ cultures as they are immersed in newsrooms – print and broadcast – in each country. English-speaking Pakistanis will receive four-week internships at U.S. media organizations, and non-English speakers (supported by an interpreter) will spend half that time.
The program will be knit throughout with events and opportunities to experience U.S. life, showcasing its diversity. Similarly, the U.S. participants, who will represent the Pakistanis’ U.S. media hosts during the internships, will go to Pakistan for two-week programs during which they will learn the realities of Pakistani journalism and national life through site visits, interviews and opportunities to interact with journalists, officials and ordinary Pakistanis.
Participants on both sides will have opportunities to report on their experiences in each country, which will help to educate their audiences and dispel myths and misperceptions that people carry in each country about residents of the other. ICFJ will carry out the Pakistan-based activities with the assistance of a local Pakistani journalism organization, and the University of Maryland’s school of journalism will assist our U.S. activities.
This is an extraordinary opportunity for a media outlet to host a journalist and, ultimately, to allow one of their own newsroom’s journalists to complete the circle in an international environment.
More information about the Pakistan exchange program can be found here.