Press Conference Media Monitoring Project February 8, 2011 Al Quds Hotel

JMSP

Launched in July 2006

Funded by USAID

USAID’s first bilateral media development program in the region

We have been working with universities, public and private, to enhance journalism education. That means providing technical assistance to update curricula, introduce new courses and new text books, and providing exchanges for faculty and students. But it also means establishing facilities for and developing a culture of practical, hands-on training. Journalism is a profession and a skill – one doesn’t really learn it until one practices it. This is why JMSP revamped the newspaper lab at Yarmouk University and established a new multi-media lab at Middle East University. Most importantly, this is why we launched last year the first bootcamp for emerging journalists and internships program, and we have now six interns working at major media outlets.

We have been providing workshops and other training programs for mid-career journalists.

We are supporting community media, and especially local radio stations. JMSP launched, in partnership with local organizations, Sawt Al Karak FM in Karak, in May 2009.

JMSP has also been doing a lot of work in the area of media law and policy, encouraging regulations more conducive to freedom of expression, right to information, and media freedoms.

Since it became clear that elections were going to be held in late 2010, we thought of course of ways to help journalists produce high-quality coverage of the elections, and launched a few activities to extend support to reporters who were covering the elections. We also thought it was important to establish a mechanism and tools to evaluate the coverage of the elections. The main role of the media, especially during elections, is that of watchdog. But who watches the watchdog, who watches the media, to ensure that coverage is balanced, that equal access is granted to all parties, and that the tone that journalists use is neutral – unbiased?

JMSP issued an RFP for this media monitoring project in July 2010, publishing it in the main newspapers and online. We received several offers from local organizations, and an evaluation panel selected the proposal presented by Al Badeel Center for Studies and Research and the Amman Center for Human Rights Studies. So, we became partners!

We knew that other organizations were also thinking of conducting media monitoring projects in connection with the elections, so we coordinated very closely with ach other to ensure that there was no duplication, we split the work, so to speak. Some organizations concentrated on analyzing the election coverage by the dailies and print media, others chose to focus on television. We focused on news websites and community radio stations exclusively, because we thought these were the real new elements on the media scene during these elections. at the time of the 2007 elections campaign, there were many less websites than during these elections, and there was only one community station, while at the time of the last election, there were five.

One of the reasons why the project was so exciting was that many of the media outlets that we monitored were covering an election for the first time. So, the feedback will hopefully be useful to these young and new media outlets, and the data will help them prepare and fine-tune their coverage of coming elections. (It was just announced that municipal elections will be held in July!)

We treaded new territory, by focusing on websites and community radios, and this, as I said, was exciting, but also raised some technical questions. For example, the design and structure of news websites are becoming more and more sophisticated, which means that our monitors had to look at new elements, new features: is this story on the home page, or on the scroll page? Does it have multi-media content –  video, audio – or not? How large? These elements were just not there in 2007, but were important to the analysis of the coverage of elections in 2010.

But the growing sophistication of news websites was not the only technical challenge in this project. We wanted to develop tools specific to our Jordanian context – both social and media context – so that we could answer specific questions. How are the media covering issues related to the participation of women? How are the media covering first-time voters and youth organizations? How much space do tribal affiliations and tribes get in the overall coverage of the elections? And what about election ads? What are the most recurrent messages in election ads? Religion, tribal affiliation, services, or regional issues?

Al Badeel and ACHRS worked closely with an international expert that the JMSP contracted for this project – Professor Maureen Taylor of Oklahoma University, a senior expert in media monitoring and content analysis. I would like to congratulate Ustaz Jamal on the fantastic cooperation he had with Professor Taylor. And I would also like to thank him and his team from the bottom of my heart for their incredible dedication, enthusiasm and professionalism.

Thank you so much, Ustaz Jamal and Al Badeel Center and ACHRS. I would like to extend a special thanks to Ustaz Yahia Shukkeir, who served as researcher on this project. We are very proud, all journalists are very proud, to have such a knowledgeable, reliable, scrupulous and passionate expert. And thank you all once again for coming here today.

Francesca Sawalha