INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

IMCK trainer Sardasht Aziz started the last of a series of workshops on Social Media for Journalists. On May 29, 2012, he started a 3 day workshop for journalists from Soran and surroundings, in the Conference and Occasions Hall in Soran. In total 17 journalists participated. The workshops is the final one in a series of seven organised by IMCK in cooperation with Irex all over Iraqi Kurdistan. See our Facebook for more pictures.

Dutch trainer Robert Slagt returned to Sulaymaniya to offer a second workshop on basic journalism to the staff of Lveen. After the first, in May 2008, the political magazine became even more popular in Kurdistan and reached bi-weekly sales of 25.000 copies. But it also lost one of its staff, Soran Hama, in a revenge killing after a story about prostitution in Kirkuk. Popularity does not mean improvement is not needed. Lveen needs to separate fact and opinion, needs to work more responsible, to be searching for truths, as trainer Robert Slagt told the participants. Subjects can be presented in a more interesting way. When more opinions are presented, a conclusion may be made by the author. The magazine has the tendency to publish sensational stories, and it is made for the political classes, not for normal civilians. Slagt showed his disappoint-ment that only part of the staff partici-pated. Perhaps this is due to the success of the paper. 'They feel things are going well, many peop...

Speech by Judit Neurink, director of IMCK, after the death of Lveen-journalist Soran Mama Hama, in July 2008 Monday my good friend Yahya Basindji of Avene and AP was wounded when he was beaten up by a mob after a bombblast in Kirkuk. Last week my former student Soran Mama Hama of Lveen was assasinated in Kirkuk. Being a journalist in Iraq is a dangerous profession, we all know. And that is because so many people do not realize how important press freedom is for a nation. Without press freedom, no democracy. Those two are linked tightly. Because in a democracy, the media check on politicians and their actions, give civilians a voice and show what is happening in society. How long will we have to wait until Iraq is a democracy, and authorities will understand that they have to protect journalists, in stead of threatening them? That by letting these things happen, they do not show strength, but weakness, even fear? Fear for a press that is doing what it should be doing… Look at the murder...