Media center at Birzeit helps to develop public media in the Mediterranean

Representatives from the Media Development Center at Birzeit University took part in the closing conference of MedMedia at the headquarters of the Arab States Broadcasting Union on May 8-9, 2018. 

MedMedia is an EU-funded project that supports institutions and individuals who aim to reform media in the Southern Mediterranean region. The project is part of the “Media and culture for development in the Southern Mediterranean” program. 

The project was launched in 2014 with the joined efforts of the EU, the Tunisian government, the Arab States Broadcasting Union, and the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists. 

“It is vital for us to develop and build the capacities of journalists out in the field,” said Khalid Saleem, a representative of the Media Development Center. “We must also push for laws and regulations that protect freedoms of thought and expression that will lead to public media that offers unbiased, accurate information to the general public. Public media only develops as far as society’s freedoms do.” 

Representatives from governments, regulatory authorities, public media agencies, journalist syndicates, and journalism schools in eight countries: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, and Tunisia attended the conference. 

The attendees emphasized that the next phase of development revolves around capacity building, modern technologies, and demarcating the boundaries of public media and state or official media. 

Additionally, the conference established a set of values that each public media outlet must adhere to, which are: inclusiveness, independence, quality, variety, accountability, and creativeness.