INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

International trainer Eddy van Wessel briefed colleagues in Baghdad about working in difficult environments. He worked amongst others in Afghanistan and Chechnya. A discussion was started about the ethics of working in dangerous places, and about making pictures that are unsellable because of their violent or gruesome images. The evening session in the office of the newspaper Sabah al Jedid on  May 15, 2012 was attended by about ten journalists from different media outlets in Baghdad.

International photographer Eddy van Wessel took his workshop on photo stories to Baghdad. On May 13, 2012 he started a 3 day workshop for ten participants from different media from all over Baghdad. All participants are experienced photographers. The workshop is organised in cooperation with the newspaper Sabah al Jedid, and is taking place in the office of the newspaper in Baghdad.

This is one of the questions presenter Ahmed Thgeel asks to students from Jamia University in Baghdad for Furat TV. Ahmed, a former student from the IMCK postgraduate course Media bo Khalk (Media for People) has started working as a presenter for the satellite channel since the beginning of 2012. IMCK is happy to see that a big part of its students finds work in the media industry. It was very soon clear that Ahmed has a talent for presenting. Mustafa Al-Ani, co-trainer in the course, says: "Ahmed has a natural presence on screen. He was never afraid of the camera, and talked very freely. Also from his choice of topics in presenting I noticed he was always close to the people of Iraq." In the program Ahmed is joined by again a former student of Media bo Khalk, Mohammed Monica. Mohammed, a freelance filmmaker, is this time in front of the camera as a guest on the show of Furat TV. His interview is in the 22 minute of the programme. The theme of the show is about fash...

The teamleader of the Regional Reconstruction team of the US in Erbil visited the IMCK offices in Sulaymaniya on Tuesday November 30, 2010. Alex Laskaris talked to the staff and IMCK director Judit Neurink about the work of IMCK and the situation of the press in Iraqi Kurdistan. A day later, on Wednesday December 1 the charge d´affairs of the Dutch embassy in Baghdad, Lars Tummers, also came to IMCK. He was shown around and briefed on the projects that IMCK is conducting. Both the American RRT and the Dutch embassy support IMCK´s main project, Media bo Khalk, the post graduate training that runs in Erbil.

Two IMCK trainers in Baghdad started on October 13 a five day workshop on Writing a News Reportage. This civil journalism workshop was attended by eight young journalists from different media outlets in Baghdad. Trainers are Kholoud al-Amery and Duraid Salman, who have been trained as trainers by IMCK. The main subjects of the workshop are: what is news, basic elements of making a good news story, how to make a news reportage, and how to conduct an interview for news and reportage.

Sixteen journalists and correspondents from different papers and press agencies in Iraq gathered in the Melia Mansour in Baghdad for an IMCK-training on making a news reportage. The workshop started on August 15, 2009. In four days the journalists will be taught what news is, how to use sources, how to conduct a succesful interview and how to make a news reportage. The short news feature is a form of journalism not often used in Iraq. For IMCK this is the first training in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Before now Iraqi journalists from the South came up to the Kurdish region to be trained, but IMCK wants to be able to reach more journalists. Senior trainer Judit Neurink is testing the waters to see if the situation in Baghdad has improved enough. She is working with co-trainer Kholoud al-Amiry, and translator Ahmed Jibouri who came with her from the IMCK office in Irbil. The training is a joint activity with Simi, the Iraqi Irex-daughter working for Independent Media in Iraq.