Media Accountability in Tunisia:


Workshop: “Fostering Media Self-Regulation in Tunisia”

From 10-11 December 2022 in Sidi Bou Said

Road Map and activity plan for the enforcement of the Tunisian Press Council developed

A two-day workshop entitled “Fostering Media Self-regulation in Tunisia” took place in Sidi Bou Said on December 10-11, 2022. The Erich Brost Institute for International Journalism (Germany) organized the event in cooperation with MENA Media Monitoring (Tunisia) and the Press Council in Tunisia. The Press Council in Tunisia with its members and board representatives as well as representatives of the complaint commission attended the event and participated in developing future strategies related to operational functioning, funding opportunities and financial self-sustainability measures.

Different presentations provided by the members of the Press Council in Tunisia gave an important overview about the self-regulatory body´s current status quo.

The positive developments included amongst other the successful establishment of the self-regulatory body itself in 2020 as in prior attempts since 2012 this was not possible to be achieved. Founders of the Press Council are the Media Publishers Association FDJ, the Syndicate Journalist Union SNJT and the Tunisian League of Human Rights LTDH. Since 2020 the Press Council statutes have been developed, the Council was registered as Association and 3 Complaint Commissions have been established. The Council publishes its decisions on arriving complaints on its website and Facebook page.

The missing structure of executive management, no operational funding by members, no operational funding by parliament, no operational funds from international Donors side, as well as a missing office space (postal address) and the operational HR team for a secretariat have been highlighted as major challenges. As main challenge however is that the work of the self-regulatory body is not well known within the public and that future activities have to be developed in order to make the public aware in Tunisia about their right on correct, unbiased and timely information by media.

 


Workshop: "Media Accountability - Involving the Audience"

A three-day workshop entitled “Media Accountability – Involving the Audience” took place in Tunis on December 20-23, 2021. The Erich Brost Institute for International Journalism (Germany) organized the event in cooperation with MENA Media Monitoring (Tunisia) and the Media Development Center (Tunisia). Media representatives such as publishers, representatives of selfregulatory bodies and regulatory bodies, ombuds people, journalists and editors-in-chief, as well as representatives from academia and NGOs attended the event. The 35 participants and experts came from Algeria, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Germany, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Poland, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.

The aims of the workshop were twofold. First to explore the current standards and practices related to applied Media Accountability in the overall MENA Region. Secondly, to investigate the relevant audience involvement in the media accountability process as an interactive component in reflecting news, demanding corrections as well as in shaping programs and sending complaints in cases of breaches of relevant ethical codes.