John Owen was recently appointed Professor of International Journalism at City University in London. Owen has played a leading role in international journalism for more than two decades. As the head of TV News for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Owen made CBC a respected news organisation around the world and was instrumental in the successful launch of one of the first 24-hour news networks after CNN and Sky News. Under his leadership, CBC
dominated its Canadian news rivals, and its flagship news programme, The National, was Canada’s most watched news programme. Owen moved to London in 1990 to become CBC’s chief of foreign bureaux and London bureau chief.
In 1996, Owen left the CBC to become the founding Director of the European Centre of the Freedom Forum, an American-financed foundation that grew out of the Gannett newspaper chain. Owen turned his talents to championing local journalists after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Owen underwrote training programmes throughout Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and in countries in the former Soviet Union. He also established the European Centre in London as a dynamic forum for debate and discussion of media and journalistic issues. It was described by the journalist and historian Philip Knightley as “one of the most inspiring developments in modern journalism” and a “powerhouse for free expression and free speech.” He was a leader in the movement to provide for the first time safety training for journalists covering conflicts and natural disasters. He also underwrote and helped facilitate with Dr. Anthony Feinstein the first comprehensive survey of war journalists and how they are affected psychologically, making the link with symptoms associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.
In 2001, the Freedom Forum decided to close its international centres and concentrate its resources on building a museum about journalism, The Newseum. Owen then joined forces with the European Broadcasting Union and helped create a new broadcast news conference group, News Xchange. Owen became its founding Executive Producer, and under his editorial leadership News Xchange became the pre-eminent international broadcast conference attended by the heads of news
organisations and media groups from more than 50 countries and 140 news and media groups. Owen helped develop its signature “theatre in the round” format and exploited the EBU’s global facilities to do live satellite links to newsmakers and media experts around the world. Owen also served as Executive Producer of the first Arab Broadcast Forum that was launched three years ago in Abu Dhabi.
In addition to his work on News Xchange, Owen has lectured and taught in the UK and elsewhere. He has been a visiting professor of journalism at City university in London and taught its international journalism course. Owen’s class includes nearly 70 developing journalists from more than 30 countries. He has also taught at the London campus of New York University, lectured at the University of Addis Ababa graduate journalism programme, the new Kosovo journalism college in Pristina (KIJAC), Arizona State University in Phoenix, Arizona, and spoken at many conferences and symposiums in Europe.
Owen was amongst a handful of outside journalists who consulted for the recently created BBC College.
Owen is the co-editor of a new journalism education book being published this year by John Wiley & Sons/Blackwell. It is titled International News Reporting: Frontlines and Deadlines and is based on his course at City University. Owen has devoted considerable time and energy to educational and charitable journalism and media projects that have helped improved journalistic practise around the world. He is the founding Chairman of the Frontline Club Forum in London. The Frontline Club, in its 5th year, now has over 1300 members and staged more than 1000 events in London at its Paddington Centre. (www.thefrontlineclub.com)
Owen is currently a Trustee of the Soros-backed Open Society Foundation, The Crimes of War Project, and the newly created Canadian Journalism Forum.
In addition to being a founding member of the Editorial Board of the A-24, he is also a founding member of the Editorial Board of the International News Safety Institute. He also serves on the Dart Foundation European Advisory Board. Owen is a native of Huntington, Indiana. He received his BA from DePauw University and his MA from Indiana University.
