We are pleased to launch the NAWA Newsroom after a months-long effort to bring together students from five countries – Tunisia, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, and Yemen – under a shared interest in and dedication to journalism and digital media literacy.
While the newsroom’s launch was initially meant to be inaugurated during the Check Global Investigative Camp in July in Tunis, the pandemic has forced us to recalibrate our initial meet-up and workplan to be completely virtual. This culminated in an online launch on May 5th, where 31 students were not only introduced to the new activities and training program but also had the chance to meet one another for the first time and share their experiences and journalistic interests.
In order to fill the gap left by the cancelation of the investigative camp, we partnered with openDemocracy to launch a 6-month bimonthly training curriculum and a 3-month internship program. Through this curriculum, students will learn media ethics, digital security, skills to conduct open-source investigations, fact-checking, podcasting, and more. The training sessions will be entirely conducted online, and will begin in June. Students will then be able to apply to participate in a three-month internship program, providing them with editorial mentorship while they work on two investigative pieces.
This endeavor would not have been possible without the help of our partners at openDemocracy, Université Centrale in Tunisia, the American University of Cairo, as well as the Syrian Archive and Yemeni Archive.