Rethinking the Media

There is no such thing as unbiased information but how does the system work? What is omitted and why? During the Lebanon war of 2006, Lisa Goldman managed to keep communication going with Lebanese bloggers, a fact which attracted the attention of the international media. In fact, this was the first live-blogged war. It was also the first war during which citizens of enemy states could engage in direct, real-time communication. And, of course, it was the first occasion on which bloggers exposed the errors made by mainstream media outlets. Award-winning photographer Judah Passow, whose pictures of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are to be published as a book, Shattered Dreams, knows how images are chosen and made to speak volumes. They discuss with Robin Lustig how information is processed and presented to us.

Lisa Goldman is a free-lance journalist and a fixer for the Corriere de la Sera. She is also the editor of the brilliant City Guide Tel Aviv.  Visit her blog, On the Face, http://lisagoldman.net.

Judah Passow’s work has been published by the leading British and international newspapers and magazines. A winner of four World Press Photo awards for his coverage of conflict in the Middle East, his photographs have been widely exhibited . In 1995 Passow formed Further Vision, a new media production company, to explore the possibilities for combining traditional photojournalism with digital technology. His CD-ROM, Days of Rage, based on his work in Beirut from 1982 to 1985, received critical acclaim in the British press for its journalistic integrity and technological innovation. He was an Artist In Residence at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1998, where he directed the New Media Centre's Digital Photojournalism Laboratory, and has served as a consultant to the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute, training photojournalists on newspapers in the former Eastern Europe. He is a frequent lecturer on photojournalism at British universities.

Robin Lustig is one of the BBC's most senior radio presenters. As well as presenting the World Tonight, he also presents Newshour and Talking Point on the BBC World Service. He also has his own blog, Lustig's Letter. He has extensive experience of covering major world events for the BBC, and has broadcast live programmes from Abuja, Amman, Baghdad, Berlin, Harare, Hong Kong, Islamabad, Johannesburg, Jerusalem, Kabul, Kosovo, Moscow, New York, Paris, Ramallah, Rome, Sarajevo, Tehran, Tokyo and Washington. He has also interviewed several major world leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, and Tony Blair.
He spent 12 years at The Observer, where he was Home Affairs Editor, News Editor, Middle East Correspondent and Assistant Editor. He has won a number of awards, including the 1998 Sony Silver Award for Talk/News Broadcaster of the Year.