A decision from Brussels is putting at risk a successful programme for encouraging understanding of Europe among young journalists, warns John Horgan
Maggie O'Kane, Helen Shaw, David O'Donoghue, Gerald Flynn, Denis Barnett, Chris Dooley, Róisín Duffy, Barry O'Keeffe - this is just a sample from the long list of Irish journalists who, over the past 28 years, have had the unique experience of spending eight months in Paris as part of the scheme run by Journalistes en Europe (JE) for journalists under 35.
It still is an extraordinary scheme, founded by some of the giants of post-war European journalism (including the founder of Le Monde) with the aim of introducing young journalists from across the world to Europe, its constituent states, policies, institutions, problems - and people.
For part of that time, it has been supported by generous Irish companies, including Guinness Peat Aviation. More recently, the ESB has provided vital sponsorship for the past two years and is now supporting Sarah Binchy of TV3 and Rachel Andrews of the Sunday Tribune, who begin their course in Paris this month. Internationally, support has come from the French and Dutch governments (the Government here covered part of the cost of a study visit by 32 journalists here in 1995) and a number of large companies. EU Commission scholarships have been an essential component of the funding.
The courses offer participants the option of programmes lasting two, three, five or eight months. These are a blend of study visits, lectures, seminars and reporting assignments in different European countries. This is no holiday: participants live as students, often in student hostels, and for their reporting assignments are given a princely €70 a day, which does not go far in London or Helsinki (or indeed in Dublin!)
About half the course participants come from Europe and most of the remainder from developing countries.
All this is, however, now at risk, because of a decision by the European Commission to restrict its support for journalism courses to those institutions which offer short courses of between one and three days' duration or a week at most. A number of other institutions are also affected.
There is a deep irony in this because the commission is, at the same time, radically extending its Erasmus programme, with a new budget of €200 million for 2004-2008. This will benefit students coming to European universities from all over the world - but will de facto exclude Journalistes en Europe because it is not affiliated to a university.
Long-term programmes such as those offered by JE have been hugely instrumental in spreading a knowledge of and sympathy for Europe right across the globe. Long before perestroika, long before the collapse of Communism, young journalists from the eastern bloc countries were exploring Europe via JE with a passion and enthusiasm that time has not dimmed. The graduates, if one can call them that, number more than 800 and come from more than 100 different countries.
Another irony is that these programmes are now being threatened precisely at the time when the US, through its higher education system and government grants, is reaching out to the world and to the developing world in particular, as never before. Its programmes particularly target journalists for the very obvious reason that the media remain a critical axis for international communication and support for visiting journalists remains a central part of US foreign policy.
Nobody pretends that the US and the European agendas are always the same. Is it not equally important now that Europe, which is trying to develop its own independent and coherent foreign policy, should adopt a similar policy rather than effectively closing down a major institution which embodies the same ideas?
To do so will help to ensure that at a time when the US view of world affairs is increasingly that which is spread across the world by international media, the voice of Europe will become less effective, more marginal - a mere echo.
The greatest danger in all of this is that the EU and its institutions will come to see the maintenance of the Union's distinctive voice as merely a matter of propaganda or public relations and see its responsibilities towards journalists merely in terms of short-term training. Courses like this are undoubtedly valuable, but they can never take the place for the profoundly enriching experience, particularly for students from outside Europe, of an extended course in one of the great European cities.
- John Horgan is professor of journalism at Dublin City University and a member of the International Council of Journalistes en Europe