Justyna Kurczabinska

EBU News Committee Secretary, EBU, Geneva Switzerland

I came to the European Broadcasting Union several hours before the Sept 11, 2001 New York terrorist attacks. I was immediately involved and fascinated with how the Eurovision Exchanges content gathering and distribution system combined with the operations side provided journalists worldwide assistance in their newsrooms and at the various feedpoints in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. As Eurovision News Producer, I set up a number of EBU feedpoints including Krakow Poland for the end of pontificate of John Paul II or for the 60th Auschwitz liberation commemoration in 2005. Later, I became a Eurovision News Editor for the 24-hour Eurovision News Exchange  leading the news exchange team and bring content to EBU Members on many breaking news days e.g. during Asian tsunami in 2004, Orange Revolution in Ukraine or Polish plane crash in Russia to name a few. The News Exchange has given me an understanding of the unique multicultural face of news gathering.
 
I came to EBU from the Polish Public Broadcaster TVP, where I worked for more than 10 years as a reporter and editor in the Gdansk newsroom servicing national TVP bulletins.  I was fortunate to be in the pioneer group of Polish journalists covering European integration issues in the run-up to the submission and analysis of Poland's application for EU membership. But it was my work as a  reporter covering stories of ordinary peoples' dramas which gave me an everlasting sense of journalistic values, ethical responsibility and the importance of verifying  information in the telling of those stories.
 
As the secretary of the EBU News Committee which is an elected body representing the news activities of the EBU’s Membership, my role is to assist the Membership, through organization of meetings, workshops, and fostering of continuous dialogue, in developing cooperation and exchange of expertise and innovation in news gathering among Public Service Broadcasters.
 
News Xchange is a valuable platform for the global journalistic conversation, it is important that it is heard and shaped also by Public Service Broadcasters.
 
My mail address is kurczabinska [at] eurovision.net. Look forward to sharing the NX experience.