Media Development Center Announces 2014 Training Strategy

Birzeit University’s Media Development Center announced the schedule for its 2014 training courses, which will be held at its headquarters in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and in the city of Nazareth.

This year’s training programs will teach skills related to all fields of media work in radio, television, print media, social media, research and media policies, and issues related to gender in media.

The training programs were selected to meet the national media strategy, which the center is developing with the Palestinian government and the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate.

The training sessions will be conducted by local and international experts and trainers, in compliance with signed agreements between the center and international institutions.

The TV unit will focus on managing transmission control rooms, photo and lighting technologies, professional TV presentations, the program industry, and script writing and documentary film-making.

The written press and social media units cover the use of social networking tools by journalists and social activists, while economic and sports journalism courses address the production of news stories, press releases, photography and caricature drawing.

The annual training is offered to Birzeit University media department students and includes five courses of news writing, radio reporting, interviews, English language for the use of journalists and multimedia in online media.

An additional two training sessions will be dedicated to a unit on research and media policies  and a unit on writing media questionnaires and their analysis.

The gender unit will address the training of trainers in gender/speech skills, the empowerment of female journalists, and the use of multimedia to mainstream gender concepts.

Over the past year, the Media Development Center has conducted 35 training courses benefitting 380 journalists in the West Bank and Gaza, in addition to five courses offered to 77 students.  The center has also implemented 33 courses in media education and social media for marginalized women, benefitting about 500 women. Finally, the center has carried out a study on media development indicators in Palestine, in cooperation with UNESCO, which is the main base for the national media strategy.