Jordan’s Community Media Network awarded JTI Certification: first among Arabic-language media outlets
The Journalism Trust Initiative is making inroads into the Middle East region with Amman-based Community Media Network as the first media outlet to be awarded the JTI Certification, and which Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is pleased to announce.
An independent NGO seeking to serve the Jordanian community through an enlightening discourse, Community Media Network (CMN) positions itself as a space to encourage dialogue, to educate the public, to help in the decision-making process, and to empower marginalised groups to express themselves.
CMN director general Daoud Kuttab says the Journalism Trust initiative (JTI) “is an international mechanism that can help a local media outlet in front of local, regional and international bodies. The JTI certification we have been awarded with will help convince many of our donors and partners about our trustworthiness, and this will hopefully give added value to those who are funding our work or who want to fund our work. They would realise that we have been tested by a very well-thought-out process.”
Implementing the JTI has not required any substantial change on editorial processes of the radio broadcaster and online media organisation. The staff at CMN has welcomed the JTI as an impulse to publish information that is important to the public but has never been shared before in a structured way. “We learned a lot from the process and I think we improved our ability to have a much better relationship with our audience,” according to Daoud.
“We expect that this certification would be a game changer for our organisation with our audience, our supporters, our partners and our funders. We hope it will help us improve our relationship with them and turn that into sustainability,” Daoud added. CMN is the first media outlet publishing in Arabic and based in the Middle East to be awarded the certification.
JTI director Olaf Steenfadt welcomed this, confirming that “investing in transparency and trust of the audiences is a must these days to make journalism more sustainable. By using the JTI as a compliance tool, Community Media Network is leading by example for the whole region.”
The JTI was initiated and is operated by the Paris-based press freedom watchdog and human rights NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF), supported by partners such as the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Agence France Presse (AFP). It has been developed by a panel of international experts under the aegis of the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and published as Workshop Agreement CWA 17493 in December 2019.
Currently, 100+ media outlets are implementing this instrument along the different stages, including RTÉ News, Exit News Albania, SWI swissinfo.ch, Studio Kalangou in Niger, France Télévisions or Les Surligneurs.
More about the Journalism Trust Initiative on journalismtrustinitiative.org
Getting started with the JTI on jti-app.com
Contact details
Europe: Bertrand MOSSIAT, [email protected], +33 (0)7 49 20 39 59
Africa: Marc ABOFLAN, [email protected], +228 (0)91 44 8424
