What we call ‘International News’ doesn’t exist. It should more accurately be defined as English-language news. English is the global language, and since a perfect command of speech and language is essential in journalism, non-native English speaking journalists are disadvantaged compared to their colleagues who have English as their mother tongue.
Diversity rarely extends to second-language English voices, and that has an impact on content.
Italian-born Barbara Serra has more than 20 years’ experience as a reporter and presenter for the BBC, Al Jazeera and Sky News and was the first non-native English speaker to present a news programme on British TV. She will talk honestly about the difficulties she had to overcome due to her ‘foreign’ accent and highlight why it’s important that all voices are represented if we truly care about diversity in newsrooms.
Barbara writes extensively on this subject in her Substack newsletter News with a Foreign Accent.
The event will be in English and Italian.
