Three Prairie View A&M University students are currently visiting Paris, France to attend the International Media Conference with assistant professor of communication Toniesha Taylor.
The week long convention has given students the opportunity to interact with communication professionals from around the world while understanding where the world of media is moving. The seminar is an initiative of former publisher and CEO of the International Herald Tribune, Lee Huebner and his wife Berna. The conference is in its 17th year.
A symbol of the blend of global and cultural identity, seminar participants meet each day at the American University of Paris to learn how to brand themselves in a manner that compliments the current era of worldview.
“This whole experience is indescribable, but you have to be able to understand in any field that each culture interprets the world differently. In reference to media and news, you have to be able to creatively convey a story that can cross borders,” said JaLacia Powell, a senior accounting and finance major.
Kay Rolland, a former Wall Street Journal Europe affiliate spoke about the manner and that Huebner left on the International Herald Tribune and gave additional context to the central goal of this organized week abroad.
Indirectly following the words of media mogul Ted Turner of TNT and CNN, that “nothing is foreign” the Huebners collected former colleagues and friends like Jim Bitterman, an international correspondent for CNN, and Barry Lando, former European producer of the CBS program 60 Minutes to help explain the context and need for an international prospective, especially as the world moves toward globalization.
“With globalization there is a universal feeling that cultural identity will be lost. That’s the fear,” said Huebner.