INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

What is an responsible journalist and why is he/she important for the Kurdish media? More then twenty young people from all over Kurdistan wanted to know the answer to this question. IMCK-director and senior trainer Judit Neurink held a workshop for the group 'young leaders', during a week of workshops organized for them by the Kurdish ministry of Youth and Sport. Press freedom cannot be complete, Neurink told them. A responsible journalist tries to inform the people without causing damage to the subjects he writes about. He works inside the culture and has to always take into account the possible result of what he writes or reports. His role in a democracy is to act as a translator between people and politicians, and to report in an honest and independent way on the society and on politics.

,,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.