INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

Three Dutch parliamentary reporters came to Irbil to help their Kurdish colleagues to extend their knowledge on how to report on politics and on the parliament. Hans Otte, Milja de Zwart and Roel Geeraedts all worked in this field for years. Otte is leading the training, as he did a civil journalism training with IMCK last year. With the elections coming the three Dutch reporters also try to teach colleagues in Kurdistan how to inform people to help them cast their votes. In Irbil, at the building of Aras Publishing, on April 21 they started a workshop of 7 days with 3 groups of journalists: working in print, radio and TV. Co-trainers are Xdir Domle, Shwan Muhamed and Ako Mohammed. The project is part of a project IMCK has started to create more understanding between reporters and politicians, and is partly funded by the American reconstruction fund.

'Civilians have the right to know what parties and politicians want and do. That's what you need the media for'. That was part of the message two Dutch former parliaments members had for their colleagues of KNA, the Kurdish National Assemblee in Irbil. On February 2nd Gerrit Valk (social democrats, PvdA) and Jan Dirk Blaauw (liberals, VVD) started the first of three workshops for KNA-members on the relation between politicians and the press. They talked to them about how to make good use of the press, from their experiences in the Dutch parliament and as trainers in many different countries, and how important this is in a democracy. Their workshop is the first phase of a project by IMCK with the KNA on politics and press. Later in February KNA members will be offered mediatraining to help them get their message across to the civilians. This project has been made possible through a donation out of the American reconstruction fund.

Dutch laywer Frank van Haren will provide a training to Kurdish journalists, politicians and lawyers on the principles concerning transparancy of governance. The training will be organized by IMCK in cooperation with KOCD (Kurdistan Organisation for Civil Development) in Irbil. Two workshops of 4 days each will take place between December 12 and 21 2008. Van Haren will be focusing on the use of power by politicians and statesmen, as well as abuse of this power. Political power should only be used in accordance with the purpose of its existence, and not for personal purposes. When these two collide, one should let the public interest prevail over one's personal interests. Only the law can and should give authority and legitimacy to the actions of any politician or statesmen. Also, they should be honest and transparent in their actions and interests, in order to create a trustworthy institute called 'government'. These principles will be illustrated by several examples to mak...

Civil journalism is putting people central in reporting. What are the results of (new) policy for the people, for Sosan and Serdar? How do people feel about changes? 4000 kids who have a heart problem is bigger news than strife inside one of the parties. Kids playing in dirty water and getting ill, as well. So are the problems of Asians coming to do the dirty work in Kurdistan, and the consequences for Kurdish labor. Civil journalism puts people first, and politics at their service. It makes media more interesting for their consumers, because they find stories about their own lives. This amounts to papers being sold and read better, radio being listened to more frequently and TV being watched with more interest.