iMediaEthics editor-in-chief joins Future University in Egypt faculty to lead media ethics, fact checking and press freedom training

CAIRO, Sept. 1, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- iMediaEthics' publisher and editor-in-chief Rhonda Roland Shearer recently accepted an invitation to be a Distinguished Visiting Scholar (DVS) at Future University in Egypt's Faculty of Economics and Political Science (FEPS), which includes the new interdisciplinary department of Political Mass Media. 

Shearer, an award-winning investigative reporter, founded iMediaEthics, the NYC-based non-partisan media ethics news site, published by Art Science Research Laboratory, a not-for-profit established by Shearer, and her late husband, Harvard professor and scientist Stephen Jay Gould.

Shearer's appointment at Future University in Cairo includes developing and conducting trainings and workshops for students, journalists and sources [including government workers] in the fields of media ethics, fact checking and investigative reporting. The goal is to help improve journalism in Egypt as part of capacity-building of press freedoms and the inclusion of all voices in a democracy.

Shearer said, "The duty of any journalist is to develop sources and convince them, for example, the media ethics value of going on the record. To know how to work within press freedoms, requires training and practice to earn trust."

In September, Shearer will begin working with the university to create a 12-class curriculum and a textbook on fact checking and media ethics in Egypt. The textbook is tentatively titled "From the Front-Lines of the Media Ethics Battle in Egypt: How Fact Checking Supports Press Freedom and Democracy."

Shearer's most recent academic appointment was with the University of Iowa, where she was an adjunct professor with the School of Journalism & Mass Communications from 2010 to 2013.

Shearer has been living in Cairo since June and has spent significant time in Egypt since 2000.  Previously, she was on the board of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina library, an appointment that began soon after the library opened in October 2002. Following the end of her two terms, Shearer joined the retired board members' advisory committee.

Shearer and Gould started the not-for-profit, non-partisan Art Science Research Laboratory (ASRL) in 1998 to promote interdisciplinary studies and use of scientific methods and experts in the humanities. ASRL publishes iMediaEthics, as well as the Marcel Duchamp Online Studies Journal, ToutFait.com and NASA's Astrobiology Magazine astrobio.net. http://astrobio.net/

SOURCE iMediaEthics

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