JTP and FHS Team Up for Public Health and Media Workshops

Arab journalist participants

In March, the AUB Journalism Training Program (JTP) organized two workshops conducted by the Faculty of Health Sciences, one on how to deal with the media and the other on how to cover issues of public health.

The first workshop, held March 3-5 and entitled Communications/Media Crisis Management, attracted participants from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Hariri Foundation, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and the Population and Development Strategies Project.

JTP director Magda Abu-Fadil briefed trainees during the initial three-day event on how to deal with the media, cultivate contacts, prepare news releases, and set up a digital newsroom. Matters of media ethics, visual identity, and corporate image were also covered.

The second workshop, held March 12-14 and dealing specifically with public health coverage, helped journalists better understand health matters by focusing on programs and who runs them, identifying health organizations, covering emergencies, and teaching more about the safety measures journalists should take while reporting news.

In each instance, the large number of journalists who attended the workshops bombarded Health Ministry spokesman Mohammad Yassine with questions on tackling emergencies and on how they can secure the dissemination of information from official sources.