INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

Water is life, is the motto of three workshops for journalists IMCK senior trainers Judit Neurink and Xdir Domle are conducting in Erbil. In three afternoons they try to interest journalists to write about water problems, as Iraq is one of the countries in the world with the highest usuge of water in the world. They explain how to make water news. The workshops are the upbeat to a competition for the best story on water, which will be rewarded with a visit to the Waterweek in Stockholm in September 2010. They are part of an awareness campagne led by the Swedisch ngo Global Reporting in cooperation with the Kurdish authorities.

Marco Visser started a 5- day training about internet journalism in the Irex training hall on November 19. His 12 participants are working for different media in the region. The main objective of this training is to learn the students how to make the content of the internet news site attractive without competing with the newspaper but add something extra.

Politicians and the press in Iraqi Kurdistan have an uneasy relationship. For this reason IMCK organised a 4-phase program for the press and the member of Parlement . Former Member of Parlement Jan Dirk Blaauw , started on November 14 the first of two workshops for KP-members to discuss the relation between politicians and press. Rommert Kruithof and Liesbeth Klumper , both working as a journalist and as media trainers, started at the same day with phase 2 of the project. In 7 days they will train 42 KP-members, half of the Parlement. They will teach the politicians to think about the message they want to convey and how to articulate it. In the workshops, the participants will see how they come across on TV and at press conferences.

Marco Visser, working for the editorial departement of the Dutch newspaper Trouw, arrived in Erbil for the second time. Marco will provide a 4-day internet traing for the student of Media bo Khalq, the postgraduate course of IMCK. He started his training on November 14 for both the print and TV group. Marco will learn the students the basics of internet news sites and he will train them how to use the web to provide news.

A delegation of the American Reconstruction Team and the Provincial Reconstruction Team of Saladin visited Sulaymania on November4. They had a meeting with IMCK and some of their former students about the media situation in Kurdistan. They discussed the dependent and independent media and their matters of interest.

On behalf of Press Now Pyns Bosker started on November 2 a consultancy at Awene to help to develop a business model for its online products. He will focus on how to use the internet as a marketing and income generating tool. Awene is considered as one of the independent newspapers in Kurdistan. It was established in 2006 and is owned by its editors and journalists. Press Now has supported Awene from the very start in 2006. Apart from financial support, Press Now provided managerial advice and journalistic training.

Micheal Bergmeijer started on November 2 a consultancy about how to improve the AK news agency in Erbil. He will combine hours of formal training with on the job coaching sessions at AK for 5 days. The focus will be on editing and organisation of the news flow. AK wants to be a professional and independent press agency for the whole of Kurdistan. It operates in Kurdish, Arabic, Persian, German and English.

After the ‘documentary script writing’ training in May 2009 Kurdsat asked Nafiss Nia to give an on-the-job training about making reportage's. Nafiss opened her 7-day training on November 1 for eight participants. The course will focus on the research, interview and the whole process of making a vivid reportage. The first two days the theory will be discussed, after that the participants will shoot their own reportage.