Category Archives: Speaking

MU Speaks Out on Need for Better Journalism Teaching/Training at Dubai’s 11th Arab Media Forum

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Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil told participants at an Arab Media Forum (AMF) 2012 workshop that academics must get up to speed and not deride the importance of social media.

Some panelists and members of the audience said online media users could not be described as journalists since they don’t have the requisite academic and professional qualifications.

Magda Abu-Fadil (second from right) during AMF2012 workshop on instinctive online journalists (Courtesy of DPC)

But, Abu-Fadil argued, many Arab journalism schools lacked resources and because of their poor curricula were turning out functional illiterates by not providing students with the knowledge base and skills for today’s exploding media market.

Additionally, faculty members were often below par and incapable of keeping up with the times, hence their aversion to digital advances, social media, and inability to incorporate them in their programs.

Media Unlimited featured at Arab Media Forum 2012 in Dubai (Courtesy of DPC)

The workshop — which preceded the two-day event’s official opening — focused on whether social and online media users had become journalists by instinct.

Talk show host Zeina Yazigi (Twitter @zyazigi) of Dubai TV interviewed Abu-Fadil on her show “Al Shari’ Al Arabi” (The Arab Street) to discuss the impact of online and social media on Arabs in the wake of revolutions gripping the region and whether citizen journalists posed serious competition to traditional media.

Read details of the 11th Arab Media Forum organized by the Dubai Press Club May 8-9, 2012.

 

Magda Abu-Fadil: Tunisia’s Social Media, Slip in Freedom on Al Hurra TV

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Tunisian activists fear post-revolution gains may be slipping due to pressures and threats from hardline Islamists and supporters of the ruling Annahda Party, Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil told Washington-based Al Hurra TV in an interview from Beirut.

Abu-Fadil had referred to activists like Slim Amamou in a Huffington Post piece and reiterated his and others’ concerns about restrictive controls on traditional and online media.

Magda Abu-Fadil interviewed by Al Hurra TV

Asked how Annahda could fight social media when the party was using such tools to disseminate its message, Abu-Fadil replied: “Attacks or piracy are often used by regimes to counter adversaries.”

She added that oppressive governments often resorted to various measures to promote their ideas and attack opponents such as bloggers, activists and journalists who seek a wider margin of freedom in their countries.

“Social media are a necessity for all,” Abu-Fadil said on B-Link, a segment of the Al Hurra show “Al Youm.”

MU on Aljazeera’s Listening Post – “Tunisia’s Multiplying Media”

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UNESCO and various organizations marked World Press Freedom Day (May 3) 2012 in Tunisia, where the “Arab Spring” began and has led to uprisings in other Middle Eastern/North African countries.

Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil appeared in a segment of the Aljazeera English program Listening Post entitled “Tunisia’s multiplying media” to discuss journalists’, bloggers’ and activists’ fears that post-revolution media freedom is endangered by the tug-of-war between liberal secularists on the one hand, and the ruling Annahda Party and Islamist/Salafist hardliners on the other.

Magda Abu-Fadil on Aljazeera's Listening Post

Marriage of print and digital

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Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil spoke at the 7th Middle East Conference of the World Association of Newspapers, stressing the need to update, upgrade and integrate newsrooms across the Middle East/North Africa region and the importance of training journalists in media ethics to be applied across all platforms.

Magda Abu-Fadil (right) spoke about the need to upgrade newsrooms and train journalists in media ethics.

Links to media coverage of the event:

Photo: Anastasia Mankhaeva, freelance journalist.

MU–DCMF press for greater media freedom

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Magda Abu-Fadil attends experts meeting at Doha Center for Media Freedom, January 2012

MU director Magda Abu-Fadil helped organize and participated in an experts meeting at the Qatar-based Doha Center for Media Freedom January 30-31, 2012 which grouped journalists, activists, and members of international and Arab NGOs to discuss issues affecting the Middle East/North Africa region.

Participants pressed for protection and expansion of media freedoms in the Arab world, discussed media laws and regulations, capacity building, institution building, media management, safety and rights of journalists, and, formulated recommendations for publication into a guidebook for the media.

How can the media regain public trust?

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This was the focus of a discussion at the 5th Arab Free Press Forum in Tunis, January 23, 2012:

After years of propaganda, it is difficult for newly-free publications in the Arab World to establish themselves as trustworthy sources of news, particularly when facing competition from blogs and social media.

Five panelists discussed transparency, consideration for readers/users and the ineffectiveness of media laws. Participants agreed that codes of ethics were necessary. However, “a code of ethics should not come from the government but should be willingly established by the news organizations,” said Magda Abu-Fadil.

Report and photos of the event.

Photos by Aymen Omrani (+216 22 882 344 / barid.aymen@yahoo.fr)