INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

The team of Kirkuk Now on Saturday April 16 launched the news website in Kirkuk, to media, ngo's, politicians and others. The presentation was organised especially for Kirkuk, to give the website as much attention as possible. Project manager Jantine van Herwijnen and leading consultant Shwan Mohammed joined IMCK-director Judit Neurink (and Saman Penjwini from IMCK) on stage to give the most important details about the website, and to ask the Kirkukis to share their information with the Kirkuk Now team. KirkukNow.com provides the people of Kirkuk with independent news and information on what is happening in their city.

News, the follow up of news and researching for news. They are the major subjects of the on the job training Rob Siebelink started on Monday May 24, 2010 at Rudaw newspaper. Siebelink will spend five days with the journalists of Rudaw in their office in Erbil. Rudaw is a semi-independent Kurdish newspapers which is published weekly for the whole of Iraqi Kurdistan.

News is the base of journalism. And without research, no news. To find good news stories that are interesting for the people, research is needed, as not all the news can be found on the street. That is part of the message Dutch trainer Rob Siebelink (international reporter, former deputy editor in chief and now journalism trainer) brought to reporters from different Kurdish media. The 5 day training 'Researching the news' started at May 16 in the training hall of IMCK in Sulaymaniya. Siebelink will show what news is, how it is made and what a news cycle is, as it exists in the rest of the world. His co-trainer is IMCK-trainer Ako Muhammed, translator is Ferman Fazel.

The TV-group of IMCK's post graduate training Media bo Khalq/Media for People started a training on TV news. Dutch TV-maker Karin Greep started with the group on Monday 28 September 2009, together with lead trainer Xdir Domle. Greep will teach them what news is, how to find it and how to report it. Her four day training will end in making newsitems by all members of the group. The training is taking place in the traininghall for TV of Media bo Khalq in Irbil. Karin Greep has been working in journalism for almost 25 years, first radio and the past 7 years in TV news programs on Dutch TV.