Blogging and other participatory new media techniques and their connection with production of local news content were the focus of a recent three-day training course for Egyptian journalists run by Cairo University and jointly supported by two USAID-funded IREX projects in Egypt, the Media Development Program (MDP) [6] and the Partnership Program for Democracy and Governance (PPDG).
More than 40 participants, mostly from Egypt’s governorates, were introduced to the techniques of blogging as an easy way for professionals and ordinary people to publish their news, thoughts, opinions, photos, and comments—basically anything they want—on the Internet without having technical expertise. Best of all for many of the participants, blogging is essentially free and anyone can start a blog at any time. As documented by the live blog http://culiveblog.blogspot.com [7] that MDP produced during the course, most participants emerged with their own blogs and have continued to update them, thus increasing the amount of localized media content currently being produced in Egypt.
The most famous Egyptian bloggers have been opposition activists; as a result, blogging has been painted, especially by the state-affiliated press, as a purely political activity, thus stripping this new communications tool of its wide variety of applications. MDP worked to expand participants’ understanding of the phenomenon. At the opening session, the course designer, MDP Media Training Specialist Tarek Atia, presented a visual roundup of different types of blogs from around the world—blogs that cover consumerism, sports, cooking, married life, taking care of kids, and much more. The Egyptian blogosphere is a varied place already, and includes the bloggers MDP chose as speakers and trainers for the course—Doha Shawki, who blogs about careers and consumerism, and Mariam El-Moatassem, who blogs about cooking and being a new wife. Another young blogger, Mohamed Ezzaldin, was an instructor in the computer lab, teaching participants how to start their own blog based on a manual he produced.
The course’s lead trainer, Masry El Youm Managing Editor Ehab El Zelaky, provided a presentation on the relationship between blogs and traditional media, after which MDP relayed a video message to participants from US-based MDP consultant Robb Montgomery about how blogs were pushing traditional media to be more transparent. A lively discussion followed. Mahmoud Alameddin, head of Cairo University’s Journalism Department, spoke to the trainees about the pros and cons of blogging as a journalistic medium, while MDP Marketing Specialist Ayman Salah presented a guide to promoting blogs and making money from them. Also contributing were MDP consultant Rich McClear and Maie Shawky, the PPDG local media expert who organized the participants who travelled to Cairo from the Beni Suef and Qena governorates.
