PUBLIC JOURNALISM:

.....CIME is a founding member of the Public Journalism network affiliated since 2003 with the national Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

.....CIME has been conducting public journalism workshops in the Middle East and North Africa since 1999. The workshops bring together journalists and representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as partners in the writing of stories that focus on what NGOs have been doing at the grassroots level to assist people with serious unmet needs ranging from health care to the need for water.

.....Media-NGO workshops have been held in Lebanon, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates. In Lebanon, the workshop resulted in a cooperative effort that freed an innocent teenaged girl who had been sentenced to prison on a charge of murdering her newborn child. The journalist, Ms. Najia Houssari, a reporter for Al Hayat, worked with representatives of Dar Amal (House of Hope) to determine that the girl was innocent. Ms. Houssari was named Journalist of the Year in 2004 by the Arab-U.S. Association for Communication Educators.

.....CIME is currently planning a two-year project to assist journalists to develop working relationships with heathcare NGOs combating infectious diseases.

.....• Public Journalism Network