Sharing best practices for a better Mediterranean narration

Algiers, 24-25 February 2017

The 2-day workshop on "Sharing best practices for a better Mediterranean narration", addressed to the TV news coordinators, was organised in Algiers (24-25 February 2017), in the framework and with the support of the MedMedia EU project. This multilateral capacity building initiative was aimed at gathering, for the first time, the staff assigned to the news exchange platforms of the Mediterranean, Arab and South-East European regions – the ERN-MED (Mediterranean regional news exchange), based at the Algerian public television EPTV, the Exchange Coordination Centre of ASBU (Algiers) and the ERN-O (Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina) – to compare the functioning systems of the three platforms, to identify common challenges and problems as well as possible solutions and good practices to be shared and to harmonise the work methods, with the view of better exploiting the potential of these networks and of favouring the synergies between them.

Thanks to the active participation of the 20 attendees, some very concrete editorial and technical recommendations were pointed out. The workshop was enriched through a thematic session moderated by Abeer Hassan, media expert and journalist, and devoted to the methods and practices to be adopted to counter hate speech in the audiovisual media via ethical reporting and the proper use of the language and the sources.

Such intercultural analysis and shared reflection around a so crucial and sensitive issue will soon lead to the drafting of specific guidelines that will be disseminated within the broadcasters participating in the concerned exchange networks: a very clear and common answer to those who are using the media today to promote prejudices and call for violence, mistrust and discrimination.