DUSHANBE, September 29, 2008, Asia-Plus — The Independent School of Journalism “Tajikistan – 21st Century” (School) will host the second of a series of trainings for journalists and employees of the state institution pres services in Dushanbe from October 3-5.
Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, the School executive director Safo Safarov said that the training is aimed to consider the following themes: 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 and media; and audio, photo and video materials, Internet site of an organization.
The training is part of the “Access to Information: Cooperation and Transparency” project implemented by the School under support of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. The training participants will be given certificates, the executive director said.
Master-classes will be conducted for targeted during October-November on the following subjects: cooperation between press services and journalists and interaction between press service and other departments within organization; successful communication; and preparation of press releases bulletins, brochures, etc.
We will recall that the first training that was conducted in Dushanbe on August 7-9 resulted in signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU). The memorandum, in particular, recommended 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 recommended all state institutions to launch regularly updated websites. Representatives from president’s office, parliament, media and press services, as well as experts from media-support organizations took part in working out the memorandum.
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.
