For more than ten years Jemstone has been providing high-level training for journalists, media professionals and managers throughout the arab world, building capacity, honing skills and creating networks within and beyond the region.

We work with all kinds of media organisations and the whole range of staff, bringing a blend of cultural empathy and practical European experience that produces results.  Jemstone 'graduates' are in senior positions in media organisations in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and the Gulf. 
If you want details of our forthcoming training activities or you would like us to advise on your training needs, please contact brenda@jemstone.net

Recent Jemstone training assignments

During the first half of 2001, we designed and ran a series of workshops at Al Jazeera in Doha for their correspondents, presenters, broadcast journalists, studio directors and video editors.  More recently we provided training on the techniques of investigative journalism in Yemen, Egypt and Jordan.  And in the past year in Europe , we've organised workshops on advanced internet for journalists, human rights, audience and readership research, skills development and managing technological change.

The Jemstone training track record

Jemstone's main training activities come under several headings: general journalism skills; specialist journalism, including business and economics; masterclasses in specific craft-skills; media management, including audience and readership research; and the development of in-house training capacities

Jemstone runs masterclasses in media skills: TV set design; studio directing; VT-picture editing; news presenting; political cartooning; Arabic-language writing; radio production; forward planning; photo-journalism; web-publishing.

Upgrading the media means strengthening management, with seminars on: advanced internet; establishing and running training departments; the management of change; audience and readership research; organisational re-engineering; financial management systems; leadership and team-building.
Specialist journalism increases credibility: business, economics and finance; reporting on Europe; the media; the environment; education; sport; health.
Supporting media, supporting development -- courses and workshops in general journalism, reporting, writing and researching skills; training needs analysis; media relations strategy; web-site design and development; interview training.

Jemstone Med Media activities

'masterclass' for photo-journalists, run jointly with the French Mission Audio-Visuelle Regionale and Agence France Presse and including photographers from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain as well as the Eastern Mediterranean

advanced internet for journalists, where we brought together the best internet specialists from media organisations in the region.  The idea came from a journalist at the opposition paper in Cairo, Al Shaab, which had launched a web-site before Al-Ahram, after some basic internet training at the Jemstone summer course in Hilversum.  He wanted the chance to meet fellow self-taught internet experts from media organisations to exchange ideas and experiences and create a network. 

joint workshop for economic, business and financial journalists, in collaboration with the World Bank Institute, they provided expertise on international economics while we organised participation and the local activities, including a two-hour briefing session with the then Jordanian Prime Minister. 

a series of workshops on the creation of an Arabic-language style-book for the media.  Such a publication is standard in most Western news organisations and now we have produced a first draft for the arab media.

workshop for environmental journalists, a joint event with Egypt National Parks in Sinai and including an overnight stay at the Wadi Dana National Park in Jordan to provide a comparison with the work of ENP at Sharm El Sheikh.  A powerful new network was created and for a time the Jordan Times started a weekly supplement on environmental issues.

seminar on audience research, helping to build links between the media and their audiences/readerships to counter-balance some of the other pressures they face. 

course for the managers of training departments, showing them how to assess training needs, choose trainers, obtain funding etc.

two short training skills workshops so that the new training managers could send staff from their organisations who they want to use as part-time trainers.  These practical events prepared the participants for running training courses and workshops within their own organisations.

week-long workshop on TV set-design specially tailored for Nile TV.

workshop for media correspondents, looking at the way issues of media technology, ownership, control and freedom are covered in Europe and the region. 

journalism skills course in Holland for 30 of the best younger journalists in the region.  It is an intensive, practical course which produces dramatic improvements in participants' performance, big changes in attitudes and understanding and the kind of shared adversity that creates enduring friendships. 

annual network evaluation meeting to coincide with the World Bank's Mediterranean Development Forum in Marrakech, with three dozen senior editors and correspondents advising Jemstone on priorities for the future

'masterclass' for political cartoonists looking at production techniques, syndication rights and problems with editors, as well as stereo-types and broader political issues.

Round Table Conference on 'Culture and Communication in the Global Information Society', in partnership with the Jordanian Institute of Diplomacy and the MacBride Round Table, with 120 participants.