The News Carers: Are aid groups doing too much real newsgathering? – NEW YORK — FULLY BOOKED

Are the media relying too much on aid groups and NGOs to provide pictures and video of the world’s forgotten crises? Or does it make no difference where we source our material? Does the public even know the difference?

One concern is that aid agencies may be showing pictures and telling stories to raise money and provoke public outcry rather than providing objective assessments of humanitarian crises. Should organisations be more diligent in telling the public where they source their material?
 
Moderator
John Owen, Chairman of The Frontline Club and Professor at City University.

Speakers
Marcus Bleasdale (VII) has spent eight years covering the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has published in the UK, Europe and the US in publications such as The Sunday Times Magazine, The Telegraph Magazine, Geo Magazine, The New Yorker, TIME, Newsweek and National Geographic.

Stephen J Cassidy (UNICEF) is the Chief of the Internet, Television, Radio and Image section at UNICEF. He was Deputy Managing Editor for CNN from 1990 until 2001 handling features and logistics for CNN’s international news coverage.
 
Kimberly Dozier (CBS) is a CBS News correspondent who has worked primarily in Baghdad since August 2003. She has covered Iraq and the Middle East extensively for the CBS Evening News, The Early Show and CBS Radio News. In Baghdad in 2006 she was critically injured and journalists/cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan were lost in the bombing.

Stephen Mayes (World Press Photo) has worked with photography, art and journalism for 20 years. He is currently director of the image archive at Art + Commerce (New York). While Director of Network Photographers (1989 – 1994), London’s leading independent reportage agency, Stephen chaired the World Press Photo competition and curated several photographic exhibitions including Positive Lives which continues to tour in four continents.

Kris Torgeson (Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières) is the Communications Director of MSF in the US.