Global Journalist Radio Program Celebrates 5th Anniversary on Feb. 24

Stuart Loory Magazine Journalism Faculty Dean Mills Convergence Journalism Dean

Columbia, Mo. (Feb. 22, 2005) -- Within days and sometimes within hours of international news breaking, Columbia's sophisticated news audience and Missouri's acclaimed journalism students get first-hand analysis from Global Journalist -- a unique radio program on KBIA-91.3 FM.

Journalists discuss global issues and events on the weekly Global Journalist program. The program is celebrating its fifth anniversary.

A special anniversary broadcast of Global Journalist will be aired at 6:30 p.m. (CST) on Thursday, Feb. 24 on KBIA. KBIA is a national public radio-member station owned by the University of Missouri. It was recently ranked the number two NPR station in the nation.

"As far as I know there is no other program like us. Other programs may ask journalists to speak on certain issues, but our program is a weekly discussion between global journalists," said, Euntaek Hong, the current lead producer and a Missouri School of Journalism graduate student.

According to Stuart H. Loory, the program moderator, Global Journalist began at the suggestion of Dean Mills, dean of the School. Mills is the publisher of IPI Global Journalist magazine that is produced at the School for the International Press Institute. Loory, the Lee Hills Chair in Free-Press Studies, is also editor of the magazine.

"Missouri is the world's journalism school," said Loory, "so it makes sense to draw expertise from around the world, persons who have in-depth knowledge of issues and events and who understand the nations and cultures involved and how people are affected."

The graduate students who produce the program must act quickly under deadline pressure to assemble experts from around the world. However hectic the pace, the benefits of producing under real-time deadlines are realized in the job market.

Four former producers who will participate in the anniversary broadcast are now working for major media entities. Patrick Kessler is self-employed in Germany; Tianbo (Billy) Huang is an associate producer at CNN in Georgia; Sara Fajardo works at the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel; and Gaurav Ghose works for a business newspaper in Florida. They will join Hong in the Feb. 24 broadcast. The current producers of the program include Hong, Pavithra Sarah George, Renata Johnson and Stefanie von Brochowski.

Loory formerly covered Moscow, the White House, science, civil rights, the Vietnam War and other subjects for the New York Herald Tribune, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. He was managing editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, directing much of its prize-winning investigative reporting in the 1970s. He worked 18 years for CNN as Washington Bureau Chief, first Moscow bureau chief and executive producer of the CNN World Report.

Global Journalist airs Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. CST on KBIA-91.3 FM and is available on the Internet at the Global Journalist Radio Web site. An edited transcript of the program appears each Monday in the Columbia Missourian.