Thoughts About the Guest Speaker Panel

On Thursday we had a guest panel of speakers. I went into class not really sure what to expect, and thinking that we were going to have just one speaker. Instead, we had an entire row of guests. They were each introduced, including the country they were from. I found the variety of cultures and backgrounds they came from to be incredible, and I knew right away that with only an hour or so of class time that we wouldn't be able to even scratch the surface of the stories they could each share with us about their respective countries. They started taking questions from students. One of the first questions was about whether there are similar opportunities for women as men in each of the guests' countries. The woman from Tunisia said that there were equal opportunities, and that women were even taking over the field of journalism. Conversely, the guest from Saudi Arabia said that she did not have the same opportunity, and an even bigger problem was that women aren't allowed to drive in her country, so she couldn't even drive to cover stories. On top of that, only older women in Saudi Arabi are allowed to hire cabs, so she couldn't even get driven there at all.

Another question had to do with how much they had to censor their news for their home governments. A few countries, like Lebanon, said that it was never a big deal, but in Egypt, it apparently was not OK to criticize the government in any way. The man from Morocco said that his paper got into trouble for taking photographs of the royal family. This topic of freedom was extended when the man from Mauritania said that he felt that sometimes "too much freedom" was a bad thing, and that if a government provided everything for its citizens, it shouldn't matter whether they were free. I found it interesting that almost every other panelist's hand shot up while he was speaking, and a few that got a chance to speak immediately said that they had different opinions about this. One said that America was a lot farther ahead with respect to freedom, but that her country was working on catching up.

I think overall seeing the guests in this panel was a great chance to hear first hand from people from a part of the world that we don't normally get to hear from in America. Seeing how they had different experiences and opinions about issues showed just how different they could all be.