innovation | Media Unlimited

Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil trained Arab News journalists on the finer points of newsroom management at the paper’s Riyadh and Jeddah headquarters, with follow-up mentoring covering the Misk Global Forum in the Saudi Arabian capital.

Arab News headquarters in Riyadh

The workshops in November 2019 included the evolution of organizational charts from traditional to digital integrated multimedia newsrooms, issues of leadership, the importance of optimizing technology, and having IT people, designers, data visualization artists, infographics, photo, video and illustration teams alongside journalists and editors.

Magda Abu-Fadil with Arab News journalists in Riyadh

There was no escaping a requisite session on media ethics, notably in an era of alternative facts, deepfakes, disinformation, and the need for fact-checking in all newsrooms.

Journalists also learned about the importance of engagement with their audiences across various platforms. Almost each session had topic-related exercises.

Arab News Riyadh team being drilled on newsroom management

Abu-Fadil used a session on social media to focus on how apps can be optimized to gather and double-check information and why journalists should live blog and live tweet at major events or while covering breaking news.

There was a session on photojournalism and how newsrooms handle graphic images and videos, violence, death and hate speech.

Preparing to cover and mentor Arab News journalists at the Misk Global Forum

Not to be ignored is the importance of mobile journalism (MoJo), which Abu-Fadil stressed is a cornerstone of most newsrooms today, meaning reporters should be able to report, interview, write, shoot pictures and videos, edit their work and, if need be, upload the material to the newsroom, or directly to a live platform, if they’re qualified and authorized to do so.

Misk Global Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The workshop sessions were interspersed with several informative and how-to videos to help the trainees better understand the material’s context.

There were reminders on writing headlines, leads, nut graphs, dealing with numbers, interviewing techniques and covering major events.

Arab News journalists in Jeddah beavering away at writing and editing exercises

Other topics covered during the training included gamification, how young people consume news and comics journalism.

Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil served as a jury member for the investigative journalism category of the Arab Journalism Award (AJA) in 2018 in a bid to raise the standard of that media field.

AJA logo

The Award ceremony [AJA Supplement in Al Bayan-18-2018-04-05] usually comes at the end of the Arab Media Forum (AMF) in Dubai every year with prizes for different categories handed out to reporters, editors, columnists, photojournalists and cartoonists from across the Arab world.

Abu-Fadil is a former AJA board member and has been on several of its juries over the years.

Magda Abu-Fadil (front row far right) as an Arab Journalism Award board member in 2010 (courtesy DPC)

This year experts closely scrutinized media’s fierce competition and misleading information that causes harm at the AMF [AMF-A5 Agenda_Website_En] in April amid clamor to rectify wrongs.

“Credibility tops the agenda,” [أجندة منتدى الإعلام العربي 2018] said Mona Al Marri, the DPC president who heads the Forum’s organizing committee.

DPC President Mona Al Marri flanked by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohamad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohamad Bin Rashid at AMF 2018 (courtesy DPC)

Over 2,000 Arab and foreign media professionals, academics and corporate leaders participated in the 17th edition of the Forum organized by the DPC.

Innovation and technology also took center stage at the two-day event that packed a rich and forceful program that also focused on errant media and the negative impact of social media.