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Lunch and Learn

Part of the challenge here is changing the way people think about the job of the journalist. The young people working at TVM have grown up in a culture where a “journalist” read press releases as a part time job. Anybody asking tough questions was perceived as a dissident and faced possible punishment up to and including prison. So today we called in everyone for a “lunch and learn” session. We watched a Learning Channel special about how TV reporters in Los Angeles (at KCBS in 2000) do their jobs. It was an eye-opener for those journalists who managed to stay for the entire presentation. Unfortunately there was a report of a 7.6 earthquake during the video and the room cleared out to cover the breaking news closer to home. No tsunami danger this time, but it meant that the entire presentation was only viewed by about 10 people.