Med Media relaunch:
as we hinted in Newsletter 9, Brussels now looks
set to delay again the resumption of the Med
programmes (including over fifty Med Media projects)
until the autumn,18 months behind schedule! It seems
that Jemstone will not be affected and that we will
be able to carry on our activities for at least
another year. Nevertheless, we are depressed about
what is happening to the rest of Med Media, which was
a pioneering and brilliantly successful initiative.
It would be useful if senior political and media
figures would lobby the European Commission and the
Parliament to press for the resumption of Med Media
as promised.
Jemstone’s immediate
plans have been thrown into confusion by
these events in Brussels -- we are waiting for their
guidance on whether we should continue with the
seminars announced in Newsletter 9 or cancel them and
move straight into the new programme we have put
together with our partner organisations for 1997/98.
Over the next month, therefore,
we will concentrate on the many other ways that
Jemstone can work with the region’s media, apart
from our usual training events:
* Web site: the Jemstone, interactive web-site
is under construction, initially at Arabia On Line,
and very soon you can find it at http://www.jemstone.net
-- besides displaying these Newsletters and our other
publications and asking for ideas, it will be a
journalists’ forum where you can exchange ideas,
ask for help, etc. For more information contact Lara
Vahe Demirjian either here or fax 00 962 6 740
683.
* On-site training:
we can bring in a European or local expert for a
week to provide a specific training course for your
individual media organisation.
* Training
Departments: this
initiative (outlined in Newsletter 9) is going very
well and Khaled Shorman will be visiting all
those interested soon after the eid.
* Consultancy:
within our project we can help individual media
organisations to respond to increasing technological,
commercial and competitive pressures by supplying
experts to advise on the changes required and how to
bring them about; eg we helped to draft the new
broadcasting legislation in Jordan, giving JRTV more
independence; we can provide outside expert
assistance to any branch of the media.
* Exchange visits:
we will pay 80% of the cost of short exchange
visits between media organisations to answer
particular management questions or solve problems;
* Training Resources
Centre: we have funds to provide
training materials for individual media organisations
-- just tell us in detail what you need and we will
try to find it or have it translated; we could even
produce a training video.
* The Jemstone
Newsletter: at last we can fax named
copies of this Newsletter automatically; anyone else
who wants a regular personal copy should let us
know.
* Arabic language
‘style-book’: this ambitious
venture is now underway with the aim of producing a
reference book on journalistic Arabic for the press
throughout the region; we are contacting all the key
media figures - if you want to be involved please
tell Khaled , fax 00 962 6 740 683.
