INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

A group of ten journalists from the South of Iraq started on October 26th a five day training at IMCK. Because the South of Iraq is not safe for Western trainers to travel to, local trainers need to learn how they can educate the future generation of journalists. Gie Meeuwis, professor at the School of Journalism in Tilburg, Holland works together with co-trainer Xidr Domle. They will help the participants to increase their knowledge and practical skills, also to enable them to work as trainers on print or TV related projects. Simi (IREX) pays for the participants, IMCK takes care of the training location, trainers and translator.

'It was very good to have an on the job training for all the staff and not only for one section. I'm very happy with the results,' stated Kamal Rauf, editor-in-chief of Hawlati. Arie Elshout, vice editor-in-chief finished on October 23 a 5-day training about matters concerning management, the organisation of the work and the news flow. Arie said he was very pleased to work with the Hawlati staff.

The newsroom staff of Kurdsat tv finished on October 19 their on the job training. Hassan Rachidi, journalist for Al-Jazeera, joined them for five days and advised them about newsproduction, news flow and the most important aspects of tv-journalism. Judit Neurink, director of IMCK and Hassan Rachidi handed over a certificate to Mr. Barzan, editor in chief of Kurdsat tv. The staff was very pleased with Hassan's attendence and his work.

Jackie Frank, country director and Saman Kerkuki , projectmanager of Irex , visited IMCK on October 19 to discuss the possibilities of working together in some of their projects. After the meeting IMCK provided a 'Dutch' lunch with brown bread and different cheeses from Holland. IREX is an international NGO providing programs to improve the quality of education and independent media. Their Support for independent media in Iraq ( SIMI ) program supports media outlets, journalists, media managers and to build a professional media system. They also promote transparency through journalism education.

The editor in chief of Hawlati Newspaper asked for a training on matters concerning management, the organisation of the work and the news flow. For that reason Arie Elshout, vice editor-in-chief of de Volkskrant , one of the biggest newspapers in Holland, started a 5-day training on October 19 2009. Arie will train the staff in practical basic journalism skills and will advice the staff how to improve the quality of the newspaper. Hawlati now prints around 9000 copies twice a week, and is one of the few independent newspapers in Kurdistan, even though it’s journalists supported the Change List during the last elections. The American Recontstruction team funded half of the cost. The rest is paid by IMCK.

Dutch trainer Nafiss Nia returned to Sulaymaniya to give tv-makers of KNN a training about scenario writing. On October 18 2009, she opened her training for six participants. The purpose of this training is to teach the journalists how to make a good documentary. Nafiss will give the theory on the basis of film clips. There will be many practical writing exercises and discussions about their own ideas. KNN (Kurdistan News Network) is a new TV station on the satellite in Sulaymaniya, set up in the beginning of 2009. KNN is the station of a former dissident of PUK, Nawchirwan Mustafa, who already owned a newspaper and a polling bureau when he founded the Change List, the main opposition party in the Kurdish parliament.

In the newsroom of Kurdsat TV in Sulaymaniya started on October 14, 2009 an on the job training. Kurdsat is an important satellite channel and the main station of the political party PUK. It employs approximately 300 people. The newsroom staff will be trained for five days by Hasssan Rachidi. He has been working as a journalist for Al-Jazeera for a long period of years, both in the field and at the desk, producing news items. He will join the Kurdsat staff during the work progress and give them advice on the most important aspects of TV journalism as well as on news production and news flow. The aim of the training is to teach the staff to work more professional and efficiently.

The new Dutch ambassador in Iraq, Peter van Leeuwen paid a visit to the offices of IMCK in Sulaymaniya, on Sunday October 11, 2009. It was his first visit since he became the ambassador to Iraq earlier this year. Van Leeuwen spoke to IMCK director Neurink and was informed about the work of the Independent Media Centre. The Netherlands is financially supporting the IMCK-course Media bo Khalq, which runs in Irbil.

Journalists from Iraqi Wasit (Al-Kut) province returned to Sulaymaniya for the last phase of the 'press and politicians' project IMCK organised. They stayed for 4 days for a number of workshops, hosted by Al-Jazeera journalist Hassan Rachidi and IMCK senior trainer Xdir Domle, and visits to politicians and media in Sulaymaniya. The workshops started on October 12, 2009. The journalists came to Kurdistan to meet up with politicians from Wasit who were also trained in this project, for a final conference on how press and politicians can work together. But for technical reasons their counterparts did not make the trip North. In stead of the conference IMCK offered the journalists additional information on how to work responsibly, and arranged a press conference for them at the Head Office of the Change List in Sulaymaniya. Also visits to Kurdish media were organised.

Radiomaker Joris van de Kerkhof arrived in Iraqi Kurdistan for the third time to conduct a workshop for IMCK in making radio. This time the participants of Media bo Khalq, the post graduate training of IMCK in Irbil, are his students. Van de Kerkhof will train them on the basics of radio making, to give them a better choice of what they like in journalism. Another reason for the training, which brings both the print and TV group of the course together, is that journalists more and more have to be multi medial. The training started on October 11 and will end on October 14, and takes place in the training rooms of Media bo Khalq in the Hotel Safeer in Irbil.