« FINANCE » TRAINING IN VIETNAM

Fraud, incompetence and corruption scandals have been at the heart of some of the biggest financial news stories of the past few years.
And reporting on corporate governance issues was the focus of an advanced interactive workshop jointly organised by the AFP Foundation, the International Finance Corporation’s Vietnam Corporate Governance Program and the Global Corporate Governance Forum
Leading Vietnamese journalists who specialise in financial reporting at a range of media outlets including newspapers, online news sites, investment magazines and television stations, attended the two-day session held in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi on April 19-20
The aim of the workshop was to provide the journalists with an advanced understanding of corporate governance and to develop and enhance their journalistic skills to better investigate and report on businesses.
It followed two previous media training courses staged in Vietnam in 2010 and 2011, and a number of journalists were taking part in their second course.
Tanya Willmer, AFP’s former deputy chief editor for the Asia Pacific, chaired the workshop and led discussions on the challenges faced by journalists in Vietnam, tips for reporting on corporate governance issues and company financial statements.
The workshop sessions were co-chaired by Bui Van, former programme director of Financial Business News Channel and a vice general manager of VietNamNet Online Newspapers, who also assessed the stories written by the journalists in writing exercises and gave feedback on their work.
Anne Molyneux, director of global consulting firm CS International, who has advised public and private sector clients on corporate governance and regulatory issues, ran inter-active sessions on the status of corporate governance in Vietnam, global developments with an Asian emphasis, and failures in financial reporting, based on local and regional case studies.
Other keynote speakers included Bui Hoang Hai, deputy director of the Securities Issuing Management Department of the State Securities Commission, who discussed the new corporate governance guidelines being introduced in Vietnam.
Thai Than Hai, deputy general director of Deloitte Vietnam, gave a presentation on “The story behind the numbers”, focusing on accounting principles and giving pointers to journalists on how to read company financial statements, annual reports and auditors’ reports.
Dominic Scriven, chief executive officer of Vietnam-based investment group Dragon Capital, discussed the issues faced by an international institutional investor in Vietnam and corporate governance developments.

« BOSNIAN JOURNALISTS TOGETHER CAN RESTORE PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS »
The ‘Media in War and Peace Time – Can We Do Better?’ conference took place at the Hotel Holiday Inn, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, on 6 April, 2012, the twentieth anniversary of the start of the siege of Sarajevo.

The event was attended by more than 135 Bosnian journalists, media experts, students of journalism, foreign journalists and others. It was organised by the AFP Foundation and the Council of Europe in partnership with the Press Council and the Association of Journalists of Bosnia-Herzegovina, with the generous support of the Irish government and the UNDP.

Over the course of five hours, the speakers, coming from towns and cities around Bosnia, debated the performance of the media across the country both during and after the war and discussed the different factors affecting the way the media works today.

Twenty years after war began, the most significant change in the media across the country has been the sharp rise in the number of broadcast media outlets, many of poor quality and targeting a very local audience, the conference was told.

Change in other areas is slower. While more than 40 per cent of the population access the Internet regularly, web-based media is still largely in its infancy in Bosnia and most mainstream media are in the early stages of developing their online operations, the conference heard.

One recent positive development has been the launch of the Al Jazeera Balkans service, providing reputable non-partisan coverage of news in Bosnia and across the region in the local language, the conference was told. The conference was also attended by journalists from Lebanon and Ireland to discuss the response of journalists in other post-conflict states.

But across the mainstream Bosnian media, a sectarian agenda and partisan reporting still dominate most news coverage and most media houses are still focused on serving only one of the main three ethnic communities. Widespread use of pejorative language and hate speech continues, normalising this behaviour for young people today, speakers said. The enforcement of media guidelines in this area remains patchy.

The main cause of the media bias is pressure from the political class and the media owners, causing many journalists to lose sight of true professional values, speakers said.

Nevertheless, the conference agreed, there is much that can be done to improve the situation. Journalists, both as individuals and working together as professionals, can resist pressure from their editors to engage in partisan reporting and restore professional standards, providing balanced reporting on topics relevant to ordinary people and cutting out hate speech, the conference agreed.

The conference called for such initiatives and also backed calls from young journalists, in particular, to use the new opportunity of the Internet to ensure greater scrutiny and accountability in the mainstream media, by engaging with readers, viewers and listeners online. Such moves would also expand the media’s audience reach, it heard.

The AFP Foundation and Council of Europe closed the conference, with a promise to follow-up the discussions, noting the calls for action against hate speech, for initiatives to promote more balanced reporting and higher professional standards, and the opportunity provided by the development of the open online environment.

The Council of Europe is currently operating a two-year programme aimed at promoting tolerance and combatting hate speech in the media in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The AFP Foundation runs programmes promoting balanced reporting between media serving different communities.

‘Media Neighbourhood’ aims to strengthen journalism in the EU Neighbourhood

The European Commission today officially launches Media Neighbourhood – a 3 year programme to train over 1200 journalists across 17 EU neighbouring countries and territories. BBC Media Action is leading a consortium of international media organisations who will deliver journalism training and networking activities. The focus countries are: Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territory, the Russian Federation, Syria, Tunisia and Ukraine.

Alice Morrison, Team Leader for Media Neighbourhood said: “This is a broad and ambitious project. We’ll be offering the opportunity for world-class training to a diverse group of journalists and editors across an enormous geographical area. It is a chance to really make a difference by boosting skills, especially in the areas of media independence and online media.”

The project has a budget of EUR 4.5 million and the consortium delivering it is BBC Media Action, IREX Europe, Fondation AFP, L’Orient-Le Jour, CFI (French Televisions Group, LDK and the Media Development Center. Media Neighbourhood will bring together media professionals to create a peer group of journalists supporting each other, strengthening professional reporting standards and ethics amongst journalists working for local media across the ENPI region. A particular focus will be given to freedom of expression and its role in countries engaged in the process of democratisation.

Notes
• The full project title is: Media Neighbourhood: (European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument) ENPI- Regional Communication Programme 2011–2013: Journalist Training and Networking.
• The EU Neighbourhood area covers 16 countries and territories participating in the European Neighbourhood policy (ENP) plus the Russian Federation. ENP was developed by the EU with the main objective of avoiding the emergence of a division between the enlarged EU and its neighbours. It strives to strengthen prosperity, stability and security for all.
• BBC Media Action is leading a consortium consisting of IREX Europe, Fondation AFP, Société Générale de Presse et de’Édition s.a.l. (L’Orient – Le Jour), Canal France International, French Televisions Group, LDK Consultants Engineers and Planners SA and the Media Development Center.
• BBC Media Action is the BBC’s international development charity. We believe in the power of media and communication to help reduce poverty and support people in claiming their rights. Our aim is to inform, connect and empower people around the world. We work in partnership to provide access to useful, timely, reliable information. We help people make sense of events, engage in dialogue, and take action to improve their lives.

Contact details
If you need any additional information or would like to arrange an interview please contact Kirsty Cockburn, the Director of Communications and Branding: Kirsty.cockburn@bbc.co.uk or telephone +44 020 7557 0375.
Hristo-Ivanov.Hristov@ec.europa.eu
Programme Manager, European Commission, DG Development and Cooperation, EuropeAid, or telephone +32 2298 9472.

THIRD WORKSHOP FOR FONDATION CHIRAC-FUNDED DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
In December 2011, the Foundation conducted the third workshop in its two-year “Media for Development” programme in Lebanon. Nineteen journalists from newspapers and broadcasters representing various religious communities and political parties took part in the three-day course.
The two-year project is sponsored by the UN Development Programme, and each workshop is designed to help journalists cover Lebanon’s progress in improving human development. The latest in the series focused on environmental problems, in particular pollution of the sea.
The journalists divided into three groups for field trips along Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast. One group visited Ouzai, a predominantly Shia Muslim neighbourhood in the southern suburbs of Beirut, while the others went to the Christian towns of Jiyé, about 30 kilometres south of the capital, and Zouk, 13 kilometres to the north-east.
Jiyé was the scene of an environmental disaster in 2006, when 15,000 tons of fuel oil poured into the sea after Israeli warplanes bombed an electricity power station there.
In Jiyé and Ouzai, the journalists interviewed fishermen whose livelihood is threatened by pollution that comes from dumping untreated sewage and other solid waste into the sea. They also spoke to municipal officials and to a diver who has studied the environmental degradation of the seabed.
The group which made two visits to Zouk interviewed residents about emissions from the 50-year-old oil-powered electricity generating plant and from a nearby aluminum factory. Both installations are being studied as part of EU-funded projects to tackle environmental problems in Lebanon.
One of those interviewed, Elie Mubarak, who runs a shop repairing mobile phones, said it was paradoxical that the people of Zouk, whose air is polluted by the electricity plant, also had to put up with power shortages: “We should have electricity 26 hours a day,” he said.
People are also worried about plans to build a cement factory nearby. The mayor, Cherbel Mereb, told the journalists that he had been asking for an appointment with Prime Minister Najib Mikrati for several months, without success.
“Our newspapers say it’s bad in Dahyé,” another resident said, referring to the Beirut suburb and stronghold of the Shia movement Hezbollah, “but it’s just as bad here.”
The next stage in the “Media for Development” programme will be for the journalists to return to Jiyé, Ouzai and Zouk early in 2012 to discuss their reports with local people.
As in previous workshops, the teams were mixed, with reporters, editors and cameramen from newspapers and broadcasters representing different religious and political backgrounds.
They were accompanied by four trainers supplied by the AFP Foundation and its partner Canal France International.
In late November, the UNDP country office organized a one-day seminar for the journalists with ecologists and other experts to prepare them for the workshop.
The programme is funded by the French foreign ministry and the Chirac Foundation.