Media Helping Media

The organisers claim there's been nothing like it before in the Arab world - a TV news programme for young teenagers tackling the issues that affect the lives of 50% of the Jordanian population. It’s taken five months to produce three half-hour programmes from a team of total novices but, as Tudor Lomas reports, Shababnews is now on air and online and is covering issues rarely addressed in the region.

On the face of it, setting up a news programme for young teenagers on state-run TV in Jordan seems a long way from the cutting-edge of pioneering, independent media, but nothing like it has been done before in the Arab world.

Youth news TV can offer a realistic way of making a journalistic impact in countries where the prospects are otherwise pretty bleak.

Such news is often not taken seriously; this gives a chance to slip beneath the radar and access a crucial and influential audience.

Shababnews is a locally-produced news offering in Arabic which cuts through the bland to offer quality reports on subjects such as child labour, recycling plastic bags and the curse of diabetes.

In Jordan 50% of the population is under 20 years old.  Not only are they the future, but these young teenagers are de facto mentors for their younger brothers and sisters.  In many families they help their parents and older relatives to decode a rapidly changing world.

The views and opinions of this group matter; they are shaped by what they watch and so, compelling, well-made youth TV news programmes can have an impact, as they have done in Europe for more than 30 years. Already in Jordan, parents are starting to watch with their children.

Having seen Shababnews, a large supermarket is investigating abandoning plastic bags for paper. There have also been offers to help 'Ali' who featured in the child labour report in programme three; he works in a repair garage earning less than £2 a day.

In a country where news normally comes from the official channels, the Shababnews team has been contacted with important news items through unofficial channels.

At the same time, ministries that initially tried to brush us aside and demand we only use their approved statistics have co-operated and opened up to us.

The scale of this achievement is even greater when the dysfunctional nature of Jordan TV is appreciated.  This is an organisation where equipment is maintained only when it breaks down and cleaned less frequently; where the TV graphics department doesn't open when 'the man with the key' stays at home for the day.

It took five months of sweat and frustration, to squeeze and cajole three half-hour programmes from the team of total novices provided by Jordan TV.  Four days after the first programme was broadcast, the office was shut down and the phones and computers removed, despite powerful, public support from the head of JTV. It was probably more incompetent than sinister, after all the 'training' was over and the equipment had been provided by the training department.

A month later editorial meetings are still taking place in the canteen but the programme remains on air, making waves and attracting viewers. The team is doing it all themselves these days; The Jemstone Network, which has been supporting them, has withdrawn, although we're still seeking funding for a few months of consolidation.

The Shababnews production team

Now that people have seen on the screen what we've been enthusing about for months there's much more support and interest.

A day or two a week from us for the next few months would give the 'newborn' a greater sense of direction and confidence and more chance of long-term survival, as something useful for its influential audience.

Change comes slowly in a conservative country like Jordan, with well-entrenched control mechanisms.

The former editor of the Jordan Times, Abdullah Hassanat, saw it all from the inside:

"Since all civil servants from the prime minister down are appointed not elected, mostly for reasons other than merit, and while horizontal loyalty is to the clan, vertical loyalty is to the immediate boss and the system as a whole.  In such an environment, there is a great deal of mistrust.  Functionaries and non-functionaries alike are subjected to surveillance, not to determine how loyal they are to their mandate, but to ensure their loyalty to their bosses and to the system."

Jemstone’s strategy is two-pronged.  Providing interesting, useful TV output to an influential audience for as long as possible, which we have achieved, if only for a few weeks, and to try to capture the interest and attention of the 'bosses and the system', who have publicly advocated exactly the media approach to young people that Shababnews embodies.

We still don't know where we are with this, but at least we're calling their bluff.

We also have a plan B. The programmes are available world-wide at www.shababnews.tv -- which is a useful resource for the Arabic-speaking diaspora.

If positive reactions come back from their parents, to influential friends and family still in Jordan, then Shababnews may get the support it needs to survive.  It can then provide the kind of ideas and news and information to enable the next generation to make more informed decisions about their lives and depend less on the bosses and the system.

[important color=green title=Tudor Lomas]The author, Tudor Lomas, is director of The Jemstone Network, a media and development consultancy and training organisation based in Jordan.  It focuses on the links between media and development and supports 'good media' and 'good journalists' trying to provide people with the information they need to have control over their lives.[/important]