Indian Media Activist to Speak at Pitt

October 31, 2002

PITTSBURGH—Mannika Chopra, a journalist and media activist from India, will discuss her views on media, wealth, influence, foreign policy, and freedom of the press, at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 6, in Room 2M56 Posvar Hall, 230

S. Bouquet St., Oakland. Chopra will be joined in the discussion, presented by Pitt's University Center for International Studies, by Greg Victor, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette international editor.

Chopra participated in the H.J. Heinz Company Fellowship from August 1994 to July 1995. Since that time she has pursued a career in media in her native India. A columnist for a leading Indian newspaper, the Statesman, Chopra regularly freelances for several American and Indian publications, including the Times of India, Indian Abroad, USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Columbia Journalism Review. Most recently, Chopra spent time in the Kashmir region, reporting on the conflict and elections.

As a media activist, she and other colleagues have established a media ethics Web site, http://www.thehoot.org, which tracks media trends in India and monitors how the media covers issues. She also is actively involved with the Indian Women's Press Corps, an organization set up for women journalists as a resource and networking center.

Chopra lectures on media practices to undergraduate students of journalism at Lady Sri Ram College in New Delhi. She also is involved in researching and writing a travel guide of India, as part of the Frommer's series of travel guides (Wiley Publishing, Inc.).

The presentation is open to the public. For more information, call 412/624-4780.

###

10/31/02/tmw