On-line Workshops Help Train Journalists

Environment coverage workshop

Print, broadcast, and news media reporters from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq flocked to a five-day workshop on citizen/on-line journalism, conducted by AUB's Journalism Training Program (JTP), directed by Magda Abou-Fadil, longtime foreign correspondent and editor. Web and news media experts Jessica Dheere and Karina Rodriguez guided the participants, who took to blogging and cyber publishing like fish to water.

The training on December 3-7 involved writing, photo, audio, and video editing and production, on-line ethics, and packaging stories for multimedia and different platforms.

Hadi Abdel Ghaffar of Al Nour radio said each of the workshop session topics merited a separate and specialized course. He also urged organizers to provide faster and more accessible internet service.

A week earlier, reporters from Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine covered issues of the environment and health. The five-day mini-course featured AUB's Faculty of Health Sciences Professor Iman Nuwayhid, who engaged participants in definitions of environmental health and involved them in practical exercises.

Ministry of the Environment Director General Berj Hatjian tackled the government's perspective and legislative concerns, while managing editor Raghida Haddad of Al Bia' wal Tanmia (Environment and Development) magazine focused on methods of reporting environmental and health topics.

During the November 26-30 workshop, health in complex emergencies was the topic of a presentation by Dr. Muna Khalidi, while Ghalia Fayad of Greenpeace spoke on advocacy for the environment and how her organization attracts media attention.

Dr. Najib Nimah, a public health physician and expert, went through a detailed discussion of safety for journalists in times of complex emergencies and environmental disasters; and the issue of media ethics was emphasized in a session by JTP director Magda Abu-Fadil.

Adding depth to the workshop was a documentary film produced by the World Conservation Union on the oil spill in Lebanon that had been caused by the July 2006 war. Also presented were videos on global warming, protection of the earth's ozone layer, conservation, desertification and reforestation, and, endangered species.