INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

Nafiss Nia is back in Kurdistan to give her third training at Kurdsat TV. This time she will give a 7-day training about TV directing for eight TV makers of the channel. Nafiss will give the trainees practical and general knowledge on how to direct a film in TV world. Directing is all about managing and a good manager is always a good start for a good program. During the training they are going to focus on various steps that a director has to take in order to make a good TV film /program whether it is a documentary, fiction or even a TV program.

International trainer Gie Meeuwis is training Newroz TV, the Kurdish TV station that is reporting on the activities of the Kurdish government. The 3 day training (18-20 February 2009) in Irbil is meant to improve the news reporting and to advise the director on what is needed to improve the overall quality of the channel.

Six former students and trainers from outside joined IMCK-trainers Xdir Domle and Shwan Muhamed for 3 days to learn how to be a co-trainer for IMCK. They will be working in future trainings of the mediacentre, along side the international trainer leading the workshop. They are also asked to use their knowledge to help their own colleagues to improve their work. New trainers are Salam Omer Ibrahim, Sardasht Aziz Mahmud, Eron Omer Alias, Esmael Ebrahim, Muhamed Kazm and Muhammed Suleiman Kadir. They will be employed in future workshops on Info graphics, internet sites and on the Media bo Khalq post graduate training starting in August.

IMCK has trained five new co-trainers for its workshops on basic journalism and civil journalism. Senior trainers Xdir Domle and Shwan Muhamed took three days (4-6 December 2008) to extend their knowledge on training to the new candidates. Abdullah Sabir, Nawzad Jamal, Shahnaz Zebary, Mohsin Adib and Ako Muhammed will be assistant trainers in the workshops IMCK is organizing in the coming months.

,,We need a credible media'', said the Kurdish prime minister Nerchirvan Barzani at the opening of the new Kurdish newsagency AK. ,,Independent media have to strenghten democracy.'' It was for the first time the Kurdish PM showed his strong support for independent media in the north of Iraq. He criticized the role of media that let themselves be manipulated to deform information. Kurdistan needs an independent newsagency to inform the people, and to show the world what is happening there, was his message. In the past Kurds have suffered from media that distorted the facts. ,,That's why it took so long in the 80's for news on the genocide in Kurdistan to reach the world.'' AK is an independent Kurdish newsagency, that operates in Kurdish, Arabic and English from Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish region of Iraq. The IMCK has helped AK by offering training to the staff since June 2008.

The Independent Media Centre will bring experienced European journalists to Kurdistan, who want to share their knowledge with their Kurdish colleagues. Teaching will be done mostly in workshops, and part of the trainings will take place at the training hall of the Media Centre in Sulaymaniya. On the job training course will of course mainly take place at the media premises The Independent Media Centre in Kurdistan is working with a combination of Dutch (and international) and Kurdish trainers. These are the bridge between the European trainer and the Kurdish journalists. This way the Media Centre in the future will have formed its own supply of Kurdish trainers, who will also train new trainers. The centre will be working in co ordinance with Kurdish institutes on education of journalists.

Civil journalism is putting people central in reporting. What are the results of (new) policy for the people, for Sosan and Serdar? How do people feel about changes? 4000 kids who have a heart problem is bigger news than strife inside one of the parties. Kids playing in dirty water and getting ill, as well. So are the problems of Asians coming to do the dirty work in Kurdistan, and the consequences for Kurdish labor. Civil journalism puts people first, and politics at their service. It makes media more interesting for their consumers, because they find stories about their own lives. This amounts to papers being sold and read better, radio being listened to more frequently and TV being watched with more interest.

The Independent Media Centre in Kurdistan was founded in May 2008 and is supported by the Dutch ngo’s Press Now and Democracy and Media. Funding is both Dutch, international and Kurdish. Its main office is in Sulaymaniya, but the centre also has offices in Duhok and Irbil. Press Now started training civil journalism in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2004, and has since trained a few hundred journalists from different media (radio, TV, print). The Media Centre will extend the work started by Press Now, giving equal time and energy to journalists from different backgrounds - political, social, religious and ethnic.