Assistant Professor of Mass Communication, Syed Muhammad Saqib, being a member of Global MediaClimate Network, was invited to attend and speak at the 4th Cairo Media Conference held at the American University in Cairo, Egypt from 23 to 24 October 2022. The conference was co-organized by the American University in Cairo, Egypt and Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. This fourth edition of the Cairo media conference was focused on, “Communicating Climate Change: Is the Climate Crisis also a Communication Crisis?”.
Mr Saqib shed light on the climate crisis situation of Pakistan and shared stats on the climate literacy among the public of Pakistan. He further highlighted the importance of climate journalism education to help prepare future journalists and turn eco-anxiety into eco-compassion through the improved climate coverage. Mr Saqib presented climate journalism education as a hope factor that can help improve the climate literacy among public which eventually aids climate action. He concluded his presentation by sharing a few resources for climate journalism educators that they can use in their classes while teaching the course.
Mr Saqib also conducted a workshop on climate journalism education at the American University in Cairo on 22nd October 2022, along with Professor, Elisabeth Eide, professor emerita from Oslo Metropolitan University and the co-chair of the MediaClimate Network, and other senior member from the network, Dr Mofiz ur Rahman from Dhaka University, Bangladesh The workshop was moderated by the Associate Dean for Graduate Students and Research at American University Cairo, Prof. Naila Hamdy. The workshop was aimed at exploring the options for teaching climate journalism in institutions of higher learning. The workshop was attended by professors from various universities in Egypt. The trainers talked about their experiences of teaching climate journalism with practical examples. It was an interactive workshop where participants shared their concerns and experiences regarding the courses they are teaching at their respective universities and how climate journalism can be incorporated in the courses and student projects/assignments – or taught as a separate course.
