The participants stresses on the need for newspaper weekend for emergence of weekly press

10 May 2010

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) held the third monthly consultative meeting, which was attended by representative of Journalists Syndicate secretariat, and a group of journalists and media workers, yesterday afternoon at MADA’s headquarter in Ramallah city. The meeting was devoted to discuss topics related to media outlets weekend, particularly written ones, how to provide independence financial source to the syndicate, and how to enhance media freedoms in the Palestinian territories

The meeting which was moderated by MADA’s director Mousa Rimawi, started with the syndicate secretariat review about their activities during the last month, their meeting with the Arab Journalists Federation, and they also talked about the many difficulties they faced in their work.

The participants stressed on the need to develop the relationship between the syndicate and Palestinian media organizations, in order to contribute to rebuilding the syndicate on a professional basis, and to assist them in overcoming their financial crisis. The participants unanimously reaffirmed the need for independent financial source for the syndicate, in particular through membership fees, and trying to persuade the media outlets to deduct 1% of their income from advertising for the syndicate. They also demanded the daily newspaper to exempt the syndicate from ads fees in the current phase.

Regarding to media outlets weekend, the Participants stressed on the need for dialogue with officials in the Palestinian daily newspapers to persuade them of the weekend holiday, in order give the opportunity for the emergence of weekly press, to provide a rest day for journalists, and also to provide job opportunities for new graduates journalists.

the Participants also called the syndicate to check the internal  rules of procedure and membership of the syndicate as soon as possible, in preparation for the convening the syndicate General Conference in the next year, and they stressed on the importance of communicating with journalists in order to restore the credibility of the syndicate, also they decided to delay the discussion  ways to promote f media freedoms to the next meeting, in order to be discussed in more comprehensive and detailed because of its importance, and to enable a larger number of journalists to participate  in the discussion.

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Contact:

Riham Abu Aita
Public Relation Officer
Ramallah
info@madacenter.org
madapalestine@yahoo.com
www.madacenter.org

Tel. & Fax: 00970 2 2976519