UND professor selected as consultant for international human rights watchdog Freedom House

Kate Menzies

Document Type

News Article

Publication Date

3-27-2013

Campus Unit

College of Arts & Sciences

Abstract

University of North Dakota journalism professor Richard Shafer has been selected as a 2013 consultant for Freedom House, headquartered in New York City, to advise on the state of press systems in newly independent post-Soviet nations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Freedom House, a nonprofit organization, was founded in 1941 by Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt to produce annual reports rating the degree of political freedom and human rights of each country. The print and web-based reports are frequently accessed by political scientists, journalists and policy-makers. Shafer will advise on the state of press systems in newly independent post-Soviet nations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Shafer teaches graduate and undergraduate mass media and communication courses at UND. He is a veteran newspaper reporter and editor. In 1987, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Missouri, focusing on the role of the press as an agent of social change and development. He has lectured and conducted journalism seminars and courses in more than 20 counties under sponsorship of the Soros Open Society Foundations, the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), the U.S. State Department, the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX) and other agencies and foundations engaged in international press development of free press systems.

Shafer has had six Fulbright fellowships to teach abroad, as well as others from the ICFJ, IREX and the Soros Foundation.

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