Algerian, Mauritanian, Tunisian and French students meet to discuss the question of media and democracy
Related project
MediaLab CampusThe “Media and Democracy" project recently enabled 20 journalism students and professionals to undergo training in Tunis and Bordeaux from 16 to 29 September 2019. This was the fourth edition of the event and the first to be funded in part by CFI through the MediaLab Campus.
The 2019 group of trainees included 10 journalism students from Tunisia, 5 professional journalists from Mauritania and 5 professional journalists and journalism students from Algeria. The training was provided by 7 trainers from France, Tunisia and Algeria.
A total of 70 hours of training were delivered to the trainees over a period of two weeks in Tunis, Bordeaux and Tours. Maryline Baumard, Chief Editor of Le Monde Afrique, was the event’s sponsor. The conferences were also attended by high school students, with two première (lower sixth) classes from the Bourguiba pilot high school in Tunis and two lower sixth classes from Camille Jullian high school in Bordeaux.
The trainees from the “Media and Democracy” project also attended 5 conference debates in Tunis and Bordeaux, with a total of 520 people in attendance.
Topics included:
- whistleblowers,
- fact checking,
- media and democracy in Algeria,
- media and democracy in Africa.
Four schools involved: IPSI (Tunisia), ENSJSI (Algeria), IJBA (France) and EPJT (France)
In Bordeaux, the trainees followed a 5-day immersive training course with teams at the daily newspaper Sud-Ouest. Each morning, the trainees were split into groups to delve deeper into the life and workings of the newspaper’s various departments (general editorial department, general department, online, infographics, sports news, TV7, archives, etc.).
In the afternoons, they attended various meetings with key actors and media partners in Bordeaux, including at the IJBA, with the editorial team of France 3's régional office and at the Press Club and also visited Sud-Ouest group’s printing plant.
After being split into four groups (Tunisia, Mauritania, Algeria), the trainees created four blogs as part of their training (blog 1, blog 2, blog 3, blog 4).
Several articles devoted to the event have been published, including in Sud-Ouest on the Algerian students, on the conference devoted to whistleblowers (video excerpts also available online) ; and in La Presse on the debate held at the French Institute in Tunis.
Photos of the debate are available, as is a full video record.
Fabien Pont, a journalist at the French daily Sud-Ouest, was interviewed by Radio IFM, as was Maryline Baumard, Chief Editor of Le Monde Afrique.
