INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

The IMCK training space in Erbil has been filled with active print and online journalists for the past two days. They joined in on a workshop about illegal emigration and investigative journalism. After the training was opened by IMCK Director Julia Shaw, a representative from STATT – Goran Sabah – gave a presentation on illegal emigration. Then, the attention of the participants went to international trainer Delwyn Swingewood. Swingewood is a course leader in newspaper journalism at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. The trainer took the participants through case studies and suggested areas for investigation. Some of the subjects discussed were setting up investigative stories, the definition of an investigative story, using the subject illegal emigration, how to use and in some cases protect sources, how to check facts and journalistic ethics. After two days IMCK could hand out 17 certificates to the involved participants. More pictures of this training can be fo...

IMCK Director Julia Shaw flew off to Turkey last week, to join a conference initiated by Free Press Unlimited; the main partner of IMCK. From the 12th - 14th June Free Press Unlimited partners from over 40 countries around the world gathered in Istanbul. All those attending are working on projects carrying out Free Press Unlimited's message: 'People deserve to Know'.

IMCK has welcomed television journalists in her offices in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah over the past 4 days. Together with STATT we organized two workshops on making TV news and developing stories. The main subject was illegal emigration, and people returning home to live in the KRG. Because of this both workshops started off with a presentation from STATT's Goran Sabah in the morning. After that international trainer Paul Phillips took over. Phillips trains BBC news editors with Paul Phillips Media, he was until recently head of News Training at the BBC Academy and a former television news editor. Besides helping the journalists gain more awareness of the subject of illegal emigration and to improve the broadcast journalism skills, Phillips also talks about the challenges in presenting positive stories for TV news. More photos of these two workshops are to be found on Facebook .

IMCK Director Julia Shaw was in Erbil last week to train 233 Assaish officers to be. The participants belong to the Council of Ministers, Security Agency, General Directory, Assaish in Erbil. During the two days Shaw talked about the roles & responsibilities of the media and security forces in a democratic society and about how media and security forces can interact.

While it is getting warmer and warmer outside, we hit off our training for photojournalists in Sulaymaniyah this morning. The training is organized together with STATT, the main subject is illegal migration, how to use that subject as a photo journalist and another question that is discussed during the training is 'how do you turn global, international, news into relevant local stories?' It is a 2 day workshop that ran in Erbil yesterday and the day before and is now repeated in Sulaymaniyah. The trainer is Hossein Fatemi, an Iranian photographer who is based both in Tehran and London and whose work includes international photo journalism in Somalia, Mogadishu, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Goran Lohan from STATT attended both workshops to give a presentation on the subject of illegal immigration. More pictures of these two trainings are to be found on Facebook .

IMCK cooperated in a 4 day training to enhance basic journalism skills, together with the Chaldean Writers and Press Union. The training was last week and after the 4 training days, 16 participants happily graduated. More pictures of this training can be found on Facebook .

IMCK celebrated her fifth birthday on a sunny Thursday afternoon with balloons and cake. For more pictures of the party, take a look on Facebook .