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Lidia Catalano, Italian journalist. Photo credited to the Center for European Studies, UW. |
Italian Journalist Studies U.S. Journalism Education And The Labor Market
Italian journalist Lidia Catalano spent three days at the University of Georgia in early November talking with Grady College faculty about journalism and mass communication education and about the U.S. labor market.
Catalano is a multimedia journalist for Turin-based Italian daily newspaper La Stampa, covering national and international issues such as education, migration, gender equality, the labor market and unemployment. She studied Communication and Journalism at the University of Turin, raduating in 2009. During Turin Olympic Winter Games in 2006, Catalano managed relations with national and international media outlets.
Recently she was awarded the Igor Man prize of excellence in journalism for a report on the 60th anniversary of the mining tragedy at Marcinelle in Belgium in 1956.
Her program in Athens, organized by the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research, was part of a two-month Transatlantic Media Network fellowship, coordinated by the Future Europe Initiative of the Atlantic Council in Washington.
The Cox International Center is a unit of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and partnered with the Atlantic Council for the visit.
“Athens is an interesting university city and it has been an interesting experience being here for three days,” said the Italian journalist. “I particularly enjoyed watching the Grady students’ newscast and participating in the critique.”
Dr. Charles Davis, dean of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, told the guest about the curricular changes that have been implemented to better prepare the Grady graduates for a changing communication market.
Dr. Bryan Reber, head of the Advertising/Public Relations Department, was Catalani’s host on the first day. “It was a pleasure to be one stop on Lidia's American culture reporting tour,” said Dr. Reber. “She and I talked about everything from "fake news" to politics to regional food. I was able to pick her brain a little about impressions she'd gleaned from her time in other spots across the U.S. It was great that the Cox Center hosted her and precisely the kind of exchanges that need to happen among communication professionals from different cultural and experiential backgrounds.”
In the Grady College, Catalano also met with Dr. Janice Hume, head of the Department of Journalism, to learn about media ethics in the new mass communication curricula, with Dr. Keith Herndon, to talk about the future of print journalism, with Dr. Lee Becker, Professor Emeritus, to go over data journalism and mass communication labor market in the United States, and with Professor David Hazinski, to discuss broadcast journalism.
Dr. Tudor Vlad, director of the Cox International Center, talked with Catalano about the Center's international projects and about the role of new communicators in covering community issues.
“It has been a great experience for the Center to host Transatlantic Media fellows in the last five years,” said Dr. Vlad. “It has been good for our students and faculty, and also for the Center, because we have been able to create a network of journalists in Europe who can assist us in some of our international projects.”
