Checkdesk training begins in Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon

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 →

Google Middle East Regional Manager Wael Fakharany Joins Meedan Board

We are very excited to be welcoming Wael Fakharany, Regional Manager at Google Middle East, onto the Meedan Board of Directors.  Based in Cairo, Wael has over 20 years’ experience managing technology businesses in the Middle East and brings a wealth of business development knowledge that can help Meedan become sustainable.   We asked Wael some questions about joining the Meedan board, what he thinks he can contribute and where Meedan can bring value to Middle East web users in the years ahead. How do you feel about joining the... Read The Rest →

Six Steps for Fact Checking Citizen Media

Anyone can be a publisher today – thanks to the web. As a result, there are so many more sources of news and information, which makes fact checking all the more critical in fast moving news stories.  When disinformation gets into the news cycle, it can lead to people being put in harm’s way.  Here, then, is a set of six tips to help you get it right. 1. Who is the original source? Every piece of news has a source – the person who told you the news.  Who... Read The Rest →

Mansoura training workshop: On improving citizen media in Egypt’s governorates

This is a guest post on the Meedan blog by Nehal el-Sherif. How do you verify news on social networks? How do you build your network and provide accurate reporting? What makes a good photo? Last week, I went to the city of Mansoura to help 14 young Egyptians answer these questions and develop their analytical skills and sense of judgment in order to become better citizen journalists. The training in Mansoura was part of a series of workshops organized by Meedan and Birmingham City University to train citizen journalists... Read The Rest →

Global Censorship: Case Studies from Syria and Egypt

“The ubiquity of the Internet has added an additional layer of complexity to issues of government censorship.  It is both an unrivaled tool for speech and an incredible tool for monitoring and surveillance.” The above paragraph is an excerpt of the description of the Global Censorship Conference that was held at Yale Law School March 30 – April 1. I had the pleasure of being on a panel with Lina Attalah, Managing Editor of Al Masry Al Youm (AMAY), discussing case studies of censorship. The panel discussed censorship in different... Read The Rest →

Meedan releases update to participatory liveblogging service

Meedan has released a second iteration of its participatory reporting platform for Egyptian media partner, Al-Masry Al-Youm, as part of a multi-year project to support citizen journalism in the Middle East. The update further increases the visibility of citizen reporting in Al-Masry Al-Youm’s news output, and paves the way for the platform’s extension to five other Middle East media partners later this year as a collaborative verification workbench called CheckDesk. Its part of an effort to improve the use of citizen reporting in Middle East media. The platform enables citizens... Read The Rest →

Meedan welcomes creative talents to international web development team

Appreciating a good conspiracy, and with the strategies and performance of global NGOs undergoing a round of public scrutiny for reasons viral and bizarre, I want to address head-on recently circulated rumors that Meedan has a secret and unstated mission. It is time to lay bare our true intentions and own up to them in the clarifying sunlight of complete disclosure.  It is true.  Meedan has gradually transformed from a few pretty great ideas to a lot of really great people. So, while we are all together in service of... Read The Rest →

Citizen Liveblogging Egypt’s Phase 2 Elections

As part of our ongoing project supporting citizen news curation in the Middle East, we are today working with the awesome team at Egypt Independent to test our new citizen media liveblog. As Egypt goes to the polls in phase two if the first post-Mubarak parliament, we are posting citizen content to our citizen reports page for the journalists at Egypt Independent to use in their reporting. Posting a citizen report to the testing liveblog is wonderfully simple, and is something anyone can get involved with! All you have to... Read The Rest →

Egypt’s revolution is in turmoil but its social media activism points to a bright future

“Same book, different cover.” That was how a well-connected social media manager described Egypt’s post-revolution transition when the Meedan team met him last week in Cairo. Working in a pristine air conditioned office located in the rapidly expanding hinterland of the Egyptian capital, our contact nevertheless expected 2012 to be a year of dramatic growth and vitality in the Egyptian web publishing market. In the city centre, heavily armed soldiers still surround the crumbling Maspero television building, long the propagandistic power base of the Mubarak regime, now circled with barbed... Read The Rest →

Meedan wins multi-year grant to support citizen news curation in Middle East

Meedan has won a multi-year grant to support an innovative news project in the Arab world that will help put Middle East citizens in the driving seat of news gathering. The grant was awarded by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) under its freedom of expression and democratization program. It will support Meedan to begin prototyping a news platform for citizen media curation in Arabic and English in collaboration with regional media partners. A leading daily newspaper in Egypt has agreed to take part in the first year, to be... Read The Rest →

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