Making the Syrian media more secure

The Syrian media incubator schemeaims to promote the production and dissemination of quality media content by the Syrian media. The incubator, in the town of Gaziantep, close to the Syrian border in Turkey, organises training courses for Syrian journalists and provides them with professional equipment (a studio, cameras, etc.).
" Guaranteeing the confidentiality of journalists' communications and protecting their media data is essential in the Syrian context", Jean-Marc Bourguignon explains. "The Turkish authorities and their Syrian counterparts have the Syrian media under surveillance, so in order to guarantee journalists' security and to prevent hacking, which could paralyse media work, internet connections and media data have to be secure."
"Last January, RSF stepped up security for three media and it has scheduled a mission for September, when it will attend to the security for four others."

By taking action to improve the security of a media group's equipment and to train its managers, CFI and RSF can ensure that a culture of security awareness is developed amongst Syrian journalists and that a part of the communication chain (between independent journalists and editors based in Turkey) is kept secure.
Ultimately, this is training for potential trainers who can thus have a greater impact in terms of passing on security techniques to Syrian journalists working within Syria.

Thanks to these media missions, no one can gain access to emails sent by journalists, to websites consulted, to documents printed or to data stored. "Above all, our aim, for each individual media player, is to enhance the skills of a communication and data gatekeeper. The idea is precisely that of building the capacity of the Syrian media", Jean-Marc Bourguignon stresses.

Next September, a training course will be taking place on these issues in Gaziantep with the aim of making the Syrian media fully autonomous in terms of communication security.