Middle East Citizen Journalism Project ← Back to Programs

Media

Meedan is working with the Swedish International Development Agency to improve access to the most credible and accurate citizen reporting in the Arab world. The project has Meedan developing tools for Middle East media partners which help them to engage the region’s growing digital generation in new media news gathering, corroboration and interpretation.

In the first phase, Meedan is developing a citizen-led live blogging tool for Egypt’s leading independent newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm which will be used to report on the Egyptian elections with active citizen participation (read more about these tools here). Social media expert and online journalist Noha Atef of Birmingham City University will develop trainings for citizen journalists that examine techniques for assessing the credibility of citizen media sources online.

In the second phase of the project, Meedan will extend the tools to media partners in other Middle East countries, providing a robust platform for end users to explore, sort, translate and cross-reference citizen media output in realtime. We will also be working closely with technology partner and leading co-founder of the SwiftRiver Initiative, Ushahidi.

The big picture is of journalists having more capacity to report on the big stories from their countries and hold truth to power. It is also a picture of citizen journalists leading the region-wide transition towards more openness and accountability in which citizen journalists are empowered to report accurately and credibly.

The image to the right shows Egyptian journalist @Hebalsherif in Tahrir Square, Cairo. Picture courtesy of Rowan El Shimi on Flickr.