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We’re extremely excited to announce that our Checkdesk training programme is firmly underway in four countries across the Middle East. Led by our regional partners (Welad El Balad Media Services - Egypt, 7iber – Jordan, Ma’an – Palestine, Annahar & SMEX – Lebanon), and in close cooperation with our research and training partner Birmingham City University, the training program aims to develop citizens’ journalistic skills in the way they consume and analyze media, to nurture verification and fact-checking best practice, and to introduce trainees to the Checkdesk platform. Over the coming 6 weeks,... Read The Rest →

Reporting breaking news online: Lessons from #BostonBombing

As we at Meedan followed the tragic and dramatic events as they unfolded today in Boston through both mainstream media (BBC, CBS Boston) and social media (Twitter) we noticed a couple of things that are worth recording: - If you Googled the name of the second suspect, which was first announced by the AP at 11:45 UTC then there was plenty of information to be found right away. Within 60 seconds of the name coming out, we could see where the 19 year old had gone to high school, that... Read The Rest →

Translatedesk: Social Translation for Social Media

co-written by Ed Bice, Tom Trewinnard and An Xiao Mina When Barack Obama made his first visit to Israel as president, the whole world, and especially the Middle East, paid attention. And as he took to lectern before a packed hall of students at the Jerusalem International Convention Center, the world watched. And they tweeted. They tweeted in Arabic, in Hebrew, in English, commenting in real-time and in dialogue, using Twitter for what it’s so well designed for. We saw a variety of tweets, like the ones below, that discussed... Read The Rest →

On the Meedan Radar – April 2013

Journalism & Tech - Meedan-translated post from the Witness blog (shared last bulletin) now published: فيديو المواطن للصحفيين: التحقق http://meedan.org/ar/2013/03/citizen_video - Two good references on the amazing work carried out by British amateur newshound Elliot Higgins aka @Brown_Moses who has made some important findings using YouTube videos to research weapons proliferation in Syria: Guardian report: How Brown Moses exposed Syrian arms trafficking from his front room - BBC College of Journalism post on searching social media for news: It is a bit like playing the piano. On an average day... Read The Rest →

House of Translation Lecture Cairo March 12, 2013: Social Media Translation

I was honored to be a scholar-in-residence at the AUC under the National Center for Translation House of Translation speaker series earlier this month. For context on this series and the House of Translation, see my post on the HoT / AUC / National Center for Translation speaker series. Below is the text from this lecture and the deck I presented to accompany the talk. Of course the best part of the talk was the question and answer period, but, alas, I do not have that captured so this will... Read The Rest →

Meedan Cairo Lectures: House of Translation / AUC Translation Studies

I was honored to have been the third scholar-in-residence invited to Cairo under the House of Translation Series. The House of Translation is a joint collaborative initiative between the National Center for Translation of the Ministry of Culture in Egypt and the Center for Translation Studies at The American University in Cairo. This two week run consisted in two public lectures and an intensive workshop with 16 post-graduate students of translation studies. The seminar students were chosen from among almost 60 applicants, so represented the best and brightest of the new... Read The Rest →

On the Meedan Radar – February 2013

Journalism & Tech - Blog by general manager of French newspaper Les Echos on the need for a Digital “New Journalism” – interesting insight into how he views audience source awareness and trust: http://www.mondaynote.com/2013/02/17/the-need-for-a-digital-new-journalism/ - One to watch out for here, with a new series of posts by the team at Witness + special guests (Andy Carvin, Liam Stack etc) on citizen video for journalists http://blog.witness.org/2013/02/citizen-video-for-journalists-1/ - Twitter Devolutions – post by Marc Lynch assessing whether social media was doing harm to the Arab Spring http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/07/twitter_devolutions_arab_spring_social_media There’s also an interesting... Read The Rest →

Meedan at #4MCairo conference, talking about Checkdesk and participatory journalism

Meedani Dina Hawary will today be at CFI’s 4M conference in Cairo to discuss the intersection of new media and journalism, in particular to present the work we’re doing on Checkdesk and approaches to participatory journalism. Below are the slides for Dina’s presentation, and the livestream (in Arabic) for those who want to follow. تْشِك دِسْك – الإعلام الاجتماعي إلى غرف الأخبار from Tom Trewinnard [View the story "4M Cairo 2013 - Day 1 | Journalism and new media : new working experiences, new tools, new ways of organizing" on... Read The Rest →

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