CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Fourteen journalists from Eastern Europe and Central Asia will visit the University of Illinois campus April 19-24 as part of an initiative by the U.S. Department of State.
The group is one of 11 from different regions of the world participating in the second year of the Edward R. Murrow Journalism Program. Each group, as part of a three-week visit to the U.S., will visit a different university or college campus and its respective journalism school.
“We hope the journalists learn about our version of a free press and why we think a critical and vigilant press is so important,” says Louis Liebovich, a professor of journalism at Illinois and the organizer of the local visit.
As part of their five days in Champaign-Urbana, the foreign journalists will sit in on several journalism classes, visit the WILL broadcast studios and the News-Gazette, attend a performance at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, tour some local sites, and take in a picnic and softball game.
They also will attend two panel discussions, the first featuring faculty from the journalism department and from the Russian and Eastern European Studies Center, on cultural differences between Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the U.S. The panel will begin at 2 p.m. on April 20 in Room 223 of Gregory Hall, 810 S. Wright St., Urbana.
The second panel, involving journalism faculty and local journalists in a discussion on the First Amendment, will begin at 10 a.m. on April 21 in Room 336 of Gregory Hall.
Both panel discussions are free and open to the public.
