DUSHANBE, August 11, Asia-Plus — A three-day seminar for journalists and employees of press services of the government bodies, parliament and the Supreme Court, entitled “Access to Information: Cooperation and Transparency”, that was held in Dushanbe on August 7-9 resulted in signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU).
The memorandum, in particular, recommends improving legal foundation of access to information and supporting establishment and development of press services at all state institutions of the country. Press services should be staffed with skilled personnel and have more powers, the memorandum said.
It also called media and press services to observe national and international standards of equal access to official information, ethical norms, as well as objectivity and balance while covering socially significant events.
To provide wide access of media and population to information sources the MoU recommends all state institutions to launch regularly updated websites.
The seminar, hosted by the Independent School of Journalism “Tajikistan – 21st century” (School), was part of the “Access to Information: Cooperation and Transparency” project implemented by the School under support of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.
The seminar participants considered the followings subjects: legal and ethical principles of cooperation between officials and journalists; national and international standards of access to information; new technologies in work of press services; audio, photo and video materials, website of organization. The training was conducted under technical assistance of Tajik Journalists’ and its participants will be given certificates.
The main objective of the “Access to Information: Cooperation and Transparency” project is to promote providing reliable access to information of significance for society through raising professionalism of journalists and press service employees and establishing an efficient interaction between media and press services of the state institutions.
Established in June 1999, the Independent School of Journalism “Tajikistan – 21st Century” aims to promote improvement of professionalism of journalists, development of Tajikistan’s information market, ad strengthening of competitiveness of media. Over the period of its activity, the School has implemented some 20 projects, including “Tajikistan’s Journalism in New Century”, “Management in Media”, “Journalistic Resource Center” as well as the cross-border project “Tajikistan-Afghanistan: Bridges of Friendship”, etc. As part of the projects, the School has conducted seminars, trainings and training courses on raising professionalism of journalists, instructing media personnel in modern methods of management and marketing, information and computer technologies, norms of journalistic ethics, etc.
