From On Air - Fall 2002

Media Leaders Around the World - Batch 2002

For the fourth consecutive year, PCI sponsored an international group of accomplished media professionals for studies in the United States in cinema and television, population issues, and PCI’s entertainment-education methodology.

These media leaders represent Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Philippines. This group of eight professionals, five women and three men, will return to their work with honed skills and visionary ideas. They will also return with practical training in production and program management.

Hailu Haile, of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has already produced more than seven documentaries in his work at Ethiopian Television. He regularly produces and directs short pieces on social and economic issues for the network’s TV Magazine.

“I have learned so much from the TV Magazine pieces,” Haile says, “working on some of Ethiopia’s very difficult issues—corruption, poverty, deprivation.” Though his work has already contributed to raising public awareness on some issues in Ethiopia, Haile says he’d like to go a step beyond, helping people change risky behaviors related to HIV/AIDS or strive for an education to escape a lifetime of poverty.

Arriving in Los Angeles on May 10, the group spent three months studying at the University of Southern California. The fellows took two courses at the Annenberg School for Communications. Several production courses, tailored specifically to the fellows’ level of technological and production experience, were offered in the Cinema-Television School. They also attended seminars designed to explore aspects of social content entertainment, toured CBS and Warner Brothers Studios, visited the set of an NBC soap opera, and met with directors and senior network executives.

“I am constantly told
by participating faculty that their classes are tremendously enriched by the different world view, and the level of sophistication and maturity of the PCI group.”

Doe Mayer, Professor of Film &
TV Production, USC

Doe Mayer, Mary Pickford Professor of Film & TV Production at USC, said “I am constantly told by participating faculty that their classes are tremendously enriched by the different world view, and the level of sophistication and maturity of the PCI group. The whole institution benefits from innovative and stimulating programs like this—the students, the school and the University.”

They arrived in New York on August 4 for one week, where they learned about PCI’s techniques for using entertainment-education to incorporate social and health messages in radio and TV serial dramas. They participated in discussions on sexuality and gender; HIV prevention and transmission; and research methodology. They also toured the United Nations.

One of this year’s participants, Enriqueta Valdez-Curiel, M.D., from Mexico, currently works on an entertainment-education radio program in Mexico. The project, called Radio ADO, aims to increase adolescents’ knowledge of sexual and reproductive health and help teens avoid high-risk behaviors.
“I am thrilled to be studying media production techniques,” Dr. Valdez-Curiel says, “as we are always trying to improve the quality of Radio ADO.” But she says it was the health education aspects of PCI’s work that really drew her to the program. “I believe so much in the need to spread the word to people who otherwise may fall into risky behaviors that lead to HIV/AIDS, illegal abortions, or too early childbearing,” she said, adding, “These tragedies can be prevented.”

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