Gaza, 17/10/2016--- Press House- Palestine held a media conference entitled " Promoting Objective Media,, Challenges& Recommendations" on Monday, in presence of 220 media youngsters of both gender from different universities of Gaza.
At the beginning of the conference, Belal Jadallah, chairman of Press House, confirmed that Press House always seeks to enhance freedom of expression and independency of media.
Jadallah asserted that Palestinians are in a great need for promoting objectivity of media in order to face Israel and for enhancing the Palestinian media to address the international media and community.
Jadallah said that there's a clear problem in addressing the international media, and accessing the countries that miss the Palestinian cause.
He said, " we need a clear Palestinian media that is professional, objective and independent."
Jadallah called the graduates to go towards objective and professional media, since this will save the Palestinian cause in the future, asking them to necessarily learn English language and speak it fluently. Therefore, the media national message would be clearly to the international community.
At the end of his speech, he thanked Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation for funding this project.
Saied Qdeeh, a trainee in the project, represented the trainees in a speech delivered during the conference, where he said:" we are glad that we were selected to participate in the project, and take training courses in many topics, to attend exchange meetings and educational activities, and to get practical training in Sawa Agency during the extension period that started since September."
Saed thanked the participants and the coordinators of Promoting Objective Media Project, implemented by Press House and funded by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation, highlighting the roles of trainers which contributed to building the capabilities of trainees.
He confirmed that the project added much to their knowledge including skills of tackling critical topics of Palestinian cause.
He noted that the educational meetings implemented at the universities of the Gaza Strip contributed to raising the awareness of media youth.
The trainee Qdeeh hoped that such projects like this are recommended, since they have a great impact on media graduates and students.
After the speech of Saed had been done, a video of the project activities and interviews with trainees, was displayed for the attendees during the conference.
After that, the first session was started and managed by Fatma Diab, during which Baker Al-Turkan and Sa'dy Hamad were the presenters. The lawyer Baker Al-Turkman, ombudsman in Mezan Center for Human Rights, confirmed that : " the purposefully media is a good means to deliver the opinions of people so that their reality could be changed to better and the crimes would be limited."
Al-Turkamny presented the international laws and conventions that organize media work. He also presented regulations that limit freedom of expression, publication law No( 9) of 1995, standards of presenting excuses about an article or news, the Presidential decree No(3) of 1998 about the importance of national unity, and prevention of incitement. His speech also included the laws of punishments, libel, insult and defamation , as well as the right to accessing information.
Al-Turkmany called to work on promoting media freedoms upon the international conventions and the basic law, uniting the work of media represented by journalism body by democracy, uniting the laws of media to ensure a solid united work of media and law.
He also appealed to enhance the law capabilities and knowledge of media people, and grant them with mechanisms of showing commitment to media work, as well as getting media and civil society organization in paraphrasing the laws of media, where the right of accessing information must be highlighted.
Sa'dy Hamad, the second presenter and specialist of social media, said that the new statics show that 80% of the Palestinian users of social media, depend on it to get news. It also shows that 90% of them use the website more than once every day.
Hamad explained that these websites are now a main resources of information. Thus, public opinions and various impressions are published there about any issue.
He said that the main feature of social media is the diversity of classes and the groups sharing its tools. There are neither limits nor credit card and cards, noting that people themselves can figure out the journalists' capabilities in providing news and accurate information.
Hamad asked to build promotional strategies of media outlets that depend on setting a specific way of writing news and specific continent to share.
He also asked to build the required tools for this including monitoring , building content, analysis, verification tools, and training and rehabilitation programs to share all the works of media workers that contribute to promoting objective media.
During the second session managed by Mohammad Dawoud, Heba Akila, Al-gazira correspondent, and the journalist Mageda Al-Belbesy presented their worksheets. Heba presented the challenges face by media graduates including getting a job opportunity with good payment along with a condition of having years of experience.
Akkila confirmed that there are many challenges and difficulties faced by media graduates in many Arabian countries, where these difficulties lie on the situation of Gaza Strip of having siege, political division, and the suffering of devastating results of aggressions.
She asserted that siege and closure of crossings have limited the journalists' opportunities of joining training courses and further better education. She called the competent bodies to coordinate for enabling journalists to travel.
She also asked to set educational plans that specify the quality and quantity of required major in the labor market, enacting laws that forbidden journalists' exploit, and agreeing on one united body that protects the rights of journalists.
Mageda Al-Belbesy presented the fourth worksheet entitled " the role of media youth in promoting objective media".
Al-Belbesy said that the weakness points of Palestinian media stand beyond many reasons including lack of professionalism and objectivity, which has been caused by the lack of training and individual media qualities.
She asked for a national observatory to monitor what is published by journalists, which reflects the lack of professionalism and objectivity. She also appeals do give a space for the objective criticism, since it is essential and affects the reputations of people.
In the end, the recommendations of the conference are as follows;
Enhancing media freedoms upon the international conventions and the basic law.
Uniting the journalism body through democracy.
Uniting the laws of media to ensure a united work of media and law.
Promoting the law capabilities of journalisms including their knowledge and rights.
Promoting the commitment of journalists to ethics of media work.
Promoting cooperation between media and civil society organization in setting rules of media work.
Working on issuing the right to access information.
Setting educational plans that specify the quality and quantity of requiredmajors in labor market.
Setting laws that prevent exploit journalists/
Building training programs to get all media workers involved in.
Creating an annual competition for the best objective media work.
Building essesntial tools for social media including; monitor, analysis, verification and content building tools.
