Being Journalist Friendly vs. Being E.T.

"We are broadcasting from Brussels but as our target audience are Kurds we cannot exactly decide on what approach to adopt... (Brussels)."

"There are some Turkish phrases we use in Greek also but they have different meanings in the Turkish that you use(Alexandropolis). "

I have been giving lectures in media ethics, civic journalism and radio journalism for nearly ten years in first and foremost Galatasaray University and various institutions of higher education in Istanbul, as well as at training seminars attended by local radio and television journalists in Turkey (See: www.bianet.org ).

At home and abroad I received training in journalism as a trainee and participant between 1983-84 at CFPJ (Centre de Formation et de Perfectionnement des Journalistes-Paris), 'Journalist in Europe' department, which had sadly been closed down and as a fellow at Nieman Foundation between 1999-2000.

As a media trainer, I worked abroad twice at the training seminars organized in Cyprus by the European Journalism Centre (See: www.ejc.org ) attended by Turkish and Greek Cypriot journalists, twice in the Turkish-Greek border correspondents group (Alexandropoulos and Xomotini) and five times at training meetings organised in Brussels and Cologne for Kurdish and Turkish television journalists.

Without doubt, seminars abroad are different in a number of aspects from lectures and seminars held at home. Before I dissect these differences let me share an experience with you conveyed to us by NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin at the ONO (Organization of News Ombudsmen) meeting held in Istanbul on 14-17 September 2003:

Trainer or colonial teacher

- I received an invitation from the State Department. Its wording was something to the effect of, 'We would like to invite you to participate in a series of training seminars we will organize in Iraq for training local journalists and would like you to share your expertise and journalistic approach with your Iraqi colleagues if you deem it appropriate.'

Upon a first reading of the invitation, I had thought 'It might be all right.' When I went home in the evening I discussed it with my wife, I think she became a bit tense at first because of the war situation in Iraq.

However, she then said to me, 'Journalistic training in Iraq eh? Is that journalistic imperialism?' When I thought about what she said I tended to agree with her. First of all, I could not speak any Arabic.

I didn't I know anything about Iraqi journalism either. Moreover, considering the fact that the armed forces of the nation I was a member of had a presence in Iraq I tried to figure out how I would be perceived by my Iraqi colleagues as a journalist trainer of that nation.

I decided to decline the State Department's invitation..

The experience narrated by Dvorkin, who is now the Chairman of ONO is an important one. Putting aside the political-military aspect of the issue, despite the universal, global aspect of journalism as a profession, there are dozens of special, subjective, local and specific aspects of journalism.

The words of the founder of the French daily Le Monde, Hubert Beuve-Méry, "Each country produces the press it deserves (merits)" is a case in point.

The first issue is the problem of language... Even if all your young colleagues might speak and understand English, they have to think in the language they publish and broadcast and not in English.

Language is not just a colorless and innocent means of communication; it also has a dimension of thought with an ideological content. When you add this, to the fact that, you are not from the same cultural and educational background as your foreign students or young colleagues you are lecturing, your lecture will be a nice but hollow in content, in other words, interesting but not terribly applicable or of any practical use.

In training journalists, it must be taken into account that the reader is perhaps just as important as the journalist, or the person who writes the story.

Therefore, in a foreign country, even if you can communicate with students or young colleagues using English as a medium, if you do not have a grasp of the target audience of your colleagues, that is, the psychological mindscape of their readers, their cultural and their media literacy level, you run a pretty high risk of finding yourself in the position of the Extra Terrestrial at the podium in front of your students and colleagues.

Local traditions, customs, habits and in particular, the quality of citizens relationship with the media of their country (that could be, love, hate or love and hate...) are factors that the trainer must absolutely take into consideration.

Positive side effects

On the other hand, journalistic training abroad is not impossible or completely useless. Based on my personal experience, thanks to training seminars held in Cyprus, Greece and Germany with multinational and mixed participation of journalists, students and trainees had the opportunity of being mutually informed about the press and journalism practices of the neighboring countries.

When foreign experience is perceived and implemented in a creative manner, it can be turned into a local experience. Mixed participant training seminars can lead to a camaraderie and solidarity enabled successfully by journalism and news training in problematic areas like Cyprus or Greece.

Being able to get to know the 'other' in a concrete manner and without the recourse to the mediation of the media is a huge achievement in itself.

And finally in this era of Global Media and Mixed Media where our profession and the news sector in general are experiencing a crisis of confidence and reliability, such training seminars held abroad are useful not only as a reminder of the universal principles and rules of traditional journalism, but also by enabling alternatives to students of journalism and trainees in journalism for the negative trends on a global level.

It is a futile effort to try to impose a certain style of journalism in a country where it cannot be implemented...

I was extremely lucky to have experienced the above as a Nieman fellow between 1999-2000. It is an opportunity that I wish every colleague should have! (RD/YE)

* Ragip Duran: Nieman Fellow 2000, Turkey correspondent with French daily Libération, Lecturer at Galatasaray University, Trainer with BIA ( Independent Communication Network). This article is published in 'Nieman Report', Vol 59,No 2, Summer 2005.