International Coverage of Gender, Health, Education and Religion, a six-week seminar offered by the International Center for Journalists from September 24 to November 2, will examine effective ways of reporting on gender, health, education and religion.

This course will bring together international journalists to critically examine the portrayal of women in religion, and explore related issues of health and education. Expanding media understanding of the reality of the breadth and diversity of the role of women in religion, and opening up their vistas to the critical role religion plays in shaping health and education policies, can have a profound social impact on nations throughout the world.

During the course, participants will:

  • Explore religion coverage of issues of gender, health, education and religion around the world, sharing a wide range of professional approaches.
  • Share critical insights, resources and strategies with one another on their own experience of covering issues of gender, health and education.
  • Use developing news stories from the role of women in the Arab Spring to restrictions on religious dress in schools from France to Turkey to examine and debate international media coverage of the role of women in key religion-state issues.
  • Share their own stories, or examples of their choosing, of reporting on issues of gender, health and education both to show what is possible in this field and to challenge all participants to critically assess their own coverage. Participants also would share in online conversations ways they and their colleagues can improve coverage of these issues.
  • Discover the growing body of research on the leading role of women in faith groups, and national and international findings on religious views and attitudes on issues from women clergy to health and education policies. A special tutorial would be offered showing journalists how to get deadline access to key research on these topics.
  • Explore ethical issues in reporting on gender, health, education and religion, from the need to tell all sides of a story to the importance of probing one’s own biases in how sources and story topics are selected.
  • Develop nuanced approaches to understanding how faith interacts with other factors such as economics, politics and culture in shaping public policies on issues from combating AIDS to providing equal access to education and health care.
  • Engage in live chats with prominent women journalists covering religion.
  • Develop collegial and mentoring relationships for international reporters to work together.

The seminar, which will be offered in English and Arabic, is designed to be a lasting resource for journalists leading the field in excellence in religion writing and reporting.

The course will be run by:

Suzanne Sataline (lead instructor) is currently a freelance writer and editor. Sataline has served as national religion reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where she covered breaking news, politics and the economy. She chronicled economic and social trends among the American faithful, including tumult in the Roman Catholic Church. She described how religious beliefs and prejudices shaped the 2008 presidential race. She has covered religion, politics and health for a number of publications including The New York Times, The Daily News and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Sataline received a Pew Fellowship in International Journalism from Johns Hopkins University, a Nieman Fellowship in Journalism from Harvard University and a Knight Fellowship in International Journalism from ICFJ. She has a bachelor’s degree in political science and journalism from Syracuse University and an MFA from Columbia University, School of the Arts.

Larbi Megari (co-instructor) has been a journalist for 15 years covering religion, politics, economics and culture at newspapers such as El-Nebaa, El-Hadath, El-Bilad and El-Khabar, and is now news coordinator for Algerian Television. He also was most recently the co-instructor on the ICFJ course on Covering Global Religious Conflict. He was a London-based correspondent for the Algerian daily, AlBilad, where he also produced several documentaries. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Algeria School of Psychology and Education and a master’s degree in Communications and Journalism from Metropolitan University in London. He also has a Certificate of Training in Implementation Studies and International Trade from the School of Economics in Algiers. He is currently working on his doctoral thesis in communications and journalism at Pantheon Assas University – Paris 2.

The deadline for applications for the free online course is September 7.

To apply, please follow these steps:

For more information, please contact [email protected] or Lisa Ellis at [email protected] or Babar Taimoor at [email protected]. To read more on ICFJ’s online courses, please visit: www.icfj.org/elearn.