News and Events

School of Communication - BBC holds Joint Conference on “Independent Journalism: Language and Impartiality”

 

The School of Communication, the BBC Academy’s College of Journalism and the BBC Chinese Service hosted a two-day conference on 15 and 16 November to explore changing views of media impartiality with a particular focus on Chinese and English, and the impact of social media on these languages.

Presentations/discussions were conducted on the topics of “The Importance of Impartiality in Today’s News”, “Editorial Values”, “How to Ensure Impartiality in Language”, “Impartiality in Language Around the World and Effect of Social Media on Language”, “The Language of Social Media in the West and Notable Developments in China” and “Language Use in Chinese Journalism”.

Speakers included representatives from HKBU, BBC and Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK). They were Mr. Jonathan Baker, Head of BBC Newsgathering, BBC; Mr. Bruce Lui, Visiting Senior Lecturer of the Department of Journalism; Ms. Najiba Kasraee, Editor, BBC College of Journalism’s international websites; Mr. Bryan Curtis, Head of English Programmes, RTHK; Mr. Raymond Li, Visiting Lecturer of the School of Communication; Ms. Susan Fearn, Journalism and Production Senior Training Manager, BBC; and Mr. Cheung Siu-wai, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Journalism.

Mr. Tai Keen-man, Deputy Director of Broadcasting (Programmes), and Mr. Chan Yiu-wah, Head/Chinese Programme Services of RTHK, also attended the conference.The content of the conference was live-streamed on the website of the Department of Journalism, the BBC Academy’s Chinese site and the BBC Chinese News website, followed by blog posts in Chinese and English.

	(From left): Mr. Raymond Li, Mr. Jonathan Baker and Professor Huang Yu, Dean of Communication, engage in a panel discussion on editorial values.

	President Albert Chan (third from right) welcomes Mr. Tai Keen-man (centre), Mr. Chan Yiu-wah (second from left) and speakers to the conference.