John Owen is Professor of International Journalism at City University in London. He has played a leading role in international journalism for more than two decades. As the head of TV News for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, John Owen made CBC a respected news organisation around the world and was instrumental in the successful launch of one of the first 24-hour news networks after CNN and Sky News. In 1996, he left the CBC to become the founding Director of the European Centre of the Freedom Forum, an American-funded foundation that grew out of the Gannett newspaper chain.
In 2001, John Owen joined forces with the European Broadcasting Union and helped create a new broadcast news conference group, News Xchange. He became its founding Executive Producer, and under his editorial leadership News Xchange became the pre-eminent international broadcast conference attended by the heads of news organisations and media groups from more than 50 countries and 140 news and media groups. Owen also served as Executive Producer of the first Arab Broadcast Forum that was launched three years ago in Abu Dhabi. In addition to his work on News Xchange, Mr. Owen has lectured and taught in the UK and elsewhere.
Along with Professor Heather Purdey he is co-editor of a new journalism education book being published in November by John Wiley & Sons/Blackwell. It is titled International News Reporting: Frontlines and Deadlines and is based on his course at City University. He is also the co-editor with Chris Cramer of Dying to Tell the Story/The Iraq War and the Media: A Tribute published by the International News Safety Institute.
John Owen is a native of Huntington, Indiana. He received his BA from DePauw University and his MA from Indiana University.
