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Capacity-building for Tunisian journalists on international media-ethics standards and self-regulation and capacity-building for the Tunis Centre for Press Freedom on monitoring and advocacy techniques and strategies

Year when project approved: 
2014
Approved budget: 
US$12 000.00

The post-revolution media sector in Tunisia has entered an uncertain stage, characterised by a lack of clear regulation and confusion about ethical standards. Most media professionals do not differentiate between criticism and defamation, while some managers incite their employees to go beyond ethical limits in order to increase audience size. Unfortunately, there is no press council to ensure self-regulation. The unethical behaviour of Tunisian media workers leads to distrust amongst ordinary citizens for mainstream media.
 
To address this issue, the Tunis Centre for Press Freedom proposes to train 20 young Tunisian media professionals on international standards for media ethics and self-regulation, including on gender equality and the portrayal of women. In addition, 12 members of the Tunis Centre for Press Freedom will be trained on monitoring the Tunisian media’s behavior vis-à-vis these issues and advocating ethical media coverage. Finally, two reports on the ethical behavior of Tunisian media will be widely disseminated by the Centre. 
 
This project will contribute to the consolidation of democracy in Tunisia and to the avoidance of a national escalation of violence resulting from unethical behaviour by the media. 
 

Documents
Full project description: 
Tunisia_project_proposal.pdf
Full implementation report: 
Tunisia_implementation_report.pdf
Project details
IPDC Bureau meeting nº: 
58

Implementation status :

Project evaluated:

Project scope:

IPDC Priority:

Budget
Budget code: 
354GLO5002.41

Source of funds:

Donor country:

Beneficiary
Beneficiary name: 
Tunis Centre for Press Freedom
Beneficiary description: 

The Tunis Centre for Press Freedom gained its license in February 2011 after it was established by professional journalists and activists. The Centre is a continuity of the same institute which worked a few years ago to break through the embargo imposed by the previous regime on freedom of press. Its founding members had put in place the first Tunisian Journalists' Union in May 2004 and the Tunisian Committee to Protect Journalists in December 2009. The Tunis Centre for Press Freedom aims to: • Monitor the violations of press freedom; • Participate in the legislative reform of the media sector; • Strengthen the young journalist’s abilities on media ethics. The Tunis Centre for Press Freedom was founded by 19 journalists. Its executive committee is headed by nine members.The Centre has now a Board, Management Committee and Executive Committee which together plan and oversee the Centre’s activities in the arena of media and human rights. Both the Board and the Committees have a history of fighting for freedom of press and many of them suffered persecution and detention. They continue to work for the same aims. The Centre developed in July 2011, in collaboration with a Swiss expert, a plan to raise awareness regarding the freedom of press culture and to improve communications with other human rights organizations. The Centre is running at present monitoring and documenting violations against journalists and freedom of the press with six paid members of staff and several volunteers. In addition, the Centre is running other short projects with both international and local partners.

Beneficiary address: 
Tunis centre for press freedom 4 Mexico street Belvedere 1002

Beneficiary country:

Beneficiary phone: 
+216 71 288 655
Beneficiary website: 
www.ctlj.org

Beneficiary type:

Location and contacts
UNESCO

UNESCO Field Office:

Project contacts: 

Ghias Aljundi, member of the Tunis Centre for Press Freedom

Project place: 
Tunis centre for press freedom 4 Mexico street Belvedere 1002 Tunisia

Project region:

Follow-up and achievments
Summary of the project implementation: 

The project began at the end of August 2014 and was successfully completed by mid-2015. The beneficiary body, the Tunis Centre for Press Freedom (TCPF), was contracted to support selected Tunisian journalists (54% of them women) to address self-regulation issues in their daily work. The participants were selected among print and online media outlets, and private and public television and radio stations. TCPF organized three cycles of three-day training workshops, two in Tunis and one in Sousse. There were 23 participants, including journalists and TCPF members. Participants were trained on journalism ethics standards, principles and good practices, with a focus on social media.b Moreover, the modules covered monitoring and advocacy techniques to promote media self regulation within their newsroom, as a guarantee to press freedom. As part of the training, participants developed an online survey about the media coverage of the dramatic terrorist attacks of Bardo Museum on May 18th 2015. The questionnaire was shared with, and completed by, 191 Tunisian journalists. As a result of the project, two reports have been prepared (both reports can be downloaded at: www.ctlj.org/index.php/fr/publications.): - “Experiences of self-regulation and professional ethics in Tunisian context”, which highlights the challenges of media coverage (such as sensationalism in news at the expense of analysis and explanation, and interference between news and opinion); and - “Experiences of self regulation and professional ethics in the Tunisian context.”