The Daily IIJ » Hameed Ullah

Time is the new currency – my experience of the Summer Academy 2008

Hameed Ullah — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:38:54 +0000

Before I traveled to Germany last year to participate in Summer Academy 2008, I was of the opinion that the whole world don’t care about the importance of time like we are doing here in this part of the world, especially in Pakistan.

I my country 98 percent of the people don’t care about the importance of time. If some body is supposed to come to the office at 9 o’clock in the morning, he will come at 10 and most of the people move here and there instead of doing their job. And if the same person is supposed to leave at 4 o’clock he will go at 3. So this is the normal routine in all most all offices in my country. When I was in Germany, I was expecting the same behaviour, but there everything was 200 percent different. In Germany if you are supposed to do some job at 9 o’clock, it means 9 not 10. Everything is perfectly on time.

This was the first thing I learnt in my course and when I was back home I started to apply this on myself and I faced many difficulties from my colleagues who always complain that why I am coming on time. But this habit gives a very good name to me in my organization.

In my opinion importance of time and dedication to work is the sole reason for the progress and prosperity of the develop world and carelessness of time no dedication to work is important reason for the backwardness of the developing and third world countries.

Friends this is only one thing I learnt during the Summer Academy I also learnt many other things regarding my job responsibilities and work which I will share with you in my coming writings.

Regards, Hameed

How Germans deal with their past is unbelievable

Hameed Ullah — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:14:29 +0000

“German forces in Afghanistan are not directly involved in fighting against militants,” said Christian Thiels, a young journalist in ARD office during our visit to the organisation. “Germans do not want to take part in any war, and that was the reason that we did not support the war against Iraq, which was a very good decision,” he added.
He also said that reporting in a conflict area needs a lot of hard work. For example, if you are embedded with troops than it is very difficult to give the opinion of the opposite side, but journalists must be neutral in their reporting. They should present all the aspects of the story.
When we asked whether the past has any affect on the present policies of Germany, he replied: yes, it is the bad experience of the past that affects the present in Germany.

History plays a very important role in the progress and prosperity of the nation and how Germans deal with their past is unbelievable. They never hesitate to criticize their past. When I was back home I was expecting that the Germans would feel proud of their past, but after coming here my opinion has totally changed. In our last 23 days in Germany we visited different places – like the concentration capm in Neuengamme, the Jewish Quarter in Hamburg and the Olympic Stadium. I was always searching for somebody that might be proud of the past but I remained unsuccessful in my search.
“I am not proud of my past and I do not want to talk about our past because there is nothing in our past that we can be proud of,” said Philip Koschel, a freelance photographer in response to my question. “You see these German flags in the streets. These are not there because we are proud to be Germans, these are just there because of the football final,” he added.
“We are a peaceful nation and we want to suport peace in the world and that was the reason why Germany did not supported the Iraq war.
It is human nature to always hide the bad aspects but this theory is not working in this part of the world and I think this is the reason that Germany is among the leading nation of the world and if they continue this they will always remain among the leading nations of the world.
Hameedullah

One ship – One dead – Every day

Hameed Ullah — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:20:39 +0000

As saying goes “If there is will, there is a way”. Investigative journalism is a type of reporting in which reporters deeply investigate a topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or some other scandal. Here is one definition by De Burgh (2000): “An investigative journalist is a man or woman whose profession it is to discover the truth and to identify lapses from it in whatever media may be available. The act of doing this generally is called investigative journalism and is distinct from apparently similar work done by police, lawyers, auditors and regulatory bodies in that it is not limited as to target, not legally founded and closely connected to publicity.”

Investigative Journalism was the topic we discussed on Tuesday with our lecturer Dr. Manfred Redelfs, Head of the Research and Investigations Unit at Greenpeace. Dr. Redelfs identified the following criteria for investigative journalism: “Active role of the reporter; addressing politically, economically or socially relevant issues and dealing with a conflict.”

Sources play of course a very important role for the success of any research. Dr. Redelfs recommended to start the investigative research by consulting books, newspapers, magazines, journals, statistics, databases and internet sources. Afterwords, sources could include experts (such as scientists, specialized journalists), competitors who are likely to be critical, officials and main actors.

Dr. Redelfs support his statements by elaborating the example of his investigative report regarding a German-owned ship that was scrapped on a scrap yard at Alang in Gujarat, India.

He first identified possible sources through brainstorming: The main actors like ship owners, shipping agents, scrap yard owners in India; experts such as the insurance company Lloyd’s, technical experts, journalist specializing on shipping issues; possible critics such as shipyard owners in Europe, NGOs in India, trade unions; as well as officials such as harbour authorities in Alang, customs officers, UN organisations, the Ministry for the Environment; port authorities and the International Maritime Organization.

On the shore at Alang some 45,000 young migrant workers dismantle about 350 ships a year from all over the world. Each day a new ship arrives; and on average every day one person dies as a consequence of the asbestos and other toxic waste that is set free in the dismantling process: “One ship – One dead – Every day”

The workers at Alang are working entirely unprotected, some processing the asbestos with their bare hands.

Reports like that can have serious consequences such as indictment and conviction, loss of jobs, loss of professional licences, payment of fines, loss of personal and professional reputation.

During lecture and group works we more learnt about theory and practice of journalistic investigations. It helped us to improve our knowledge on investigative journalism, one of the significant directions of mass-media.

Hameedullah and Sobir