Tag Archives: technology

MU Director Runs Masterclasses in Newsroom & Media Management

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Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil helped Arab News editors and managers navigate the choppy waters of distributed newsrooms brought on by the coronavirus.

 

Newsroom & Media Management masterclass for “Arab News” journalists

In two intensive virtual June 2020 masterclasses on “Newsroom and Media Management,” she discussed how participants from the Saudi newspaper’s Riyadh, Jeddah, Dubai, Islamabad and London bureaus can maintain productivity while physically separated from their traditional desks and beats.

The key is good management of distributed teams in various locations and time zones through strong communications, clear duties, “deep listening” to staffers, and proper coordination among various editorial, production and managerial components.

 

Shifting from news desks to news hubs

It’s also important to look out for staffers’ physical and mental well being, she said, notably in extended lockdown situations that can take a toll on their psyche and productivity, to say nothing of the pressure of being connected at all hours due to guilt or looming deadlines.

Drawing on the “Fathm Distributed Newsroom” model, Abu-Fadil spoke of handling editorial, technical and management-specific virtual meetings to keep the newspaper running smoothly but cautioned against virtual video-conference overload.

She showed a segment of a World Editors Forum webinar on how newsrooms are coping with the Covid-19 crisis that has forced many journalists to work mostly from home.

Trainees view video of World Editors Forum webinar on working from home during the Covid-19 crisis

The masterclass focused on how the pandemic has disrupted digital workflows that are being reconfigured for distributed teams, with traditional news desks becoming distributed news hubs.

Abu-Fadil shared an illustration of distributed newsroom teams with the different hubs mapped out, a more detailed diagram with the communication channels added between teams, and then asked the trainees to build their own Arab News framework on a plain template based on the model they saw.

 

Fathm’s template of a distributed structure with communications channels

In another segment she stressed the importance of leadership in unsettled times of scattered energies and cross-border editorial functions while working from home.

 

Lessons in newsroom leadership

Abu-Fadil tackled the issue of editorial content from the paper’s own reporters as well as various information providers, including crowdsourced news, and said the journalists should be ethical when publishing material shared on other platforms.

She made the case for regular training and went through the different scenarios available to distributed newsrooms to keep staffers up to speed. She also examined training tools available to media organizations.

 

Abu-Fadil urged “Arab News” managers to set up a verification and fact-checking hub

Another key element is audience engagement, to which Abu-Fadil said her charges should give more attention, adding that they need staff dedicated to acknowledging public interactions and answering user questions.

 

Advice on how best to capitalize on social media

She discussed technology and tools needed for team communication and wrapped up with advice on how to avoid the pitfalls of social media excess by prioritizing quality over quantity, diversifying to meet audience needs, re-evaluating how platforms are changing, and keeping track of changes in the audience’s habits.

MU Director Leads Newsroom Management Workshops in Riyadh, Jeddah

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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.

Abu-Fadil on Media Literacy at GEN-Organized “Unconference”

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Four speakers, including Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil, challenged participants at an “unconference” to help promote media literacy and mitigate damage from disinformation, social media abuse and various forms of manipulation via news and other outlets.

Magda Abu-Fadil on importance of media literacy at International Journalism Festival (courtesy Bartolomeo Rossi)

The “unconference” – different from a classical conference where speakers and sessions are defined – allowed participants to set the agenda and contribute solutions to problems.

Abu-Fadil’s challenge: How to find resources for media literacy courses. Who will pay and/or wants to pay for them?

 

IJF 2018 speaker

Her frame of reference was Lebanon in particular and the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region in general with a need to provide such skills in multiple relevant languages.

The Global Editors Network (GEN) organized the “unconference” at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy in April 2018.

 

GEN CEO Bertrand Pecquerie guides media literacy “unconference” (courtesy IJF)

It grouped GEN CEO Bertrand Pecquerie as moderator, Dan Gillmor, a digital media literacy and entrepreneurship professor at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, George Brock, a journalist, consultant and visiting professor at London’s City University, Barbara Huppe, chief marketing officer at Hubii, a local news aggregator-cum-blockchain technology firm, and Abu-Fadil.

Pequerie facilitated a discussion with the audience asking participants to provide ideas, recommendations and various options for the four challenges.

The full “unconference” can be viewed here.

Abu-Fadil Serves on AJA Jury, Promotes Professional Journalism

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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.

Journalists Need Digital Skills and Traditional Grounding: Abu-Fadil

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Today’s journalists are expected to have multimedia digital skills but must also abide by the principles of accuracy, fairness, balance, humanity and ethics, Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil told French magazine Défense.

“Today’s journalists are required to do more because of the available technology, because of budget cutbacks, and because of the 24/7 news cycle,” she said, adding that in the old days jobs were clearly defined – there was the reporter and there was the photographer or video cameraman/woman.

Interview with Abu-Fadil in Défense magazine.

Interview with Abu-Fadil in Défense magazine. 

There’s a crisis of confidence in both traditional and other media due to a lack of professionalism by many journalists as well as the political and economic pressures they face, Abu-Fadil noted in the March/April 2016 issue of the publication.

Citizen journalists – ordinary people with mobile devices like smartphones – are often the first on the scene of a disaster or event and transmit their content like photos, videos, texts – immediately through social media before traditional journalists can cover what is happening.

So it’s imperative for journalists to be able to interact with their audiences through social media and to produce high quality content using mobile devices to get the message out in a timely fashion across different platforms, she said.

The complete interview is available here [PDF].

MU Media Literacy Features at I.C. Workshop

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Should parents or nursery school teachers use an iPad as a pacifier to ease a toddler into school or a playgroup?

How do schools integrate technology, social media and other forms of engagement in their curricula?

Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil answered those and other questions at a workshop on Media and Information Literacy (MIL) for schoolteachers at Lebanon’s International College Ain Aar campus.

Abu-Fadil shows video on how iPads affect children

Abu-Fadil shows video on how iPads affect children

She drew on UNESCO’s MIL Curriculum for Teachers that combines two distinct areas – media literacy and information literacy – under one umbrella.

Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Teachers

Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Teachers

Abu-Fadil underscored the importance of digital literacy and deconstructed it during the workshop in May 2014 using case studies and videos to illustrate the point.

She reviewed key competencies needed for MIL such as knowledge and understanding of media and information for democratic discourses and social participation, evaluation of media texts and information sources, and, production and use of media and information.

Teachers at IC's Ain Aar campus learn about media literacy

Teachers at IC’s Ain Aar campus learn about media literacy

The training also centered on how to engage with students in a multimedia environment and across various platforms.

Abu-Fadil demonstrated how social media tools such as Twitter have become an integral part of the teaching and learning process.

MU director conducts workshop on media and information literacy at Lebanon's International College

MU director conducts workshop on media and information literacy at Lebanon’s International College

The discussion also touched on accessing information in an effective and affective way, the importance of critical thinking, and methods of evaluating media-related information.