[FoME] Haiti: Media Operations Centre

[Christoph Dietz]

RT @mediamentor: Reporters Sans Frontières & Quebecor Media Operations
Centre gets backing from Haitian government

Published on 21 January 2010

Haiti's culture and communications minister, Marie-Laurence
Jocelyn-Lassègue, has given her support for the Media Operations Centre
installed in Port-au-Prince by Reporters Without Borders and Quebecor.
Their representatives are to meet with her in the capital this morning
(at 9 a.m. local time) to discuss the way the centre will function and
the choice of journalists to run it.

The centre's mandate is to:
1- make the equipment that Haitian journalists need to work available
to them
2- act as a place where they can meet their international colleagues
3- offer the various organisations that defend journalists in Haiti a
place where they can operate
4- act as a news centre for the various government authorities and NGOs
that want to address as many media as possible
5- advise and assist the government and its partners as regards
relaunching news media that were hit by the 12 January earthquake, both
in the capital and provinces, especially in the towns of Petit-Goâve,
Grand-Goâve and Léogâne, which were very badly affected.

Located on Cheriez Street in the Port-au-Prince neighbourhood of
Canapé-Vert, the centre has room for up to 20 journalists to work at
any one time, a news conference room that can hold 40 people and a
terrace that can hold 60 people. It will have broadband Internet,
telephone lines, an audio and video conference system, a satellite TV
link and printers, as well as facilities for journalists in distress.

Canada's governor-general, Mickaëlle Jean, plans to address a message
in Creole to the Haitian people via the centre tomorrow. We invite
Haitian President René Préval to hold a meeting with the press in the
centre and we hope that the presidents, prime ministers and foreign
ministers of the countries with particularly close ties with Haiti will
also chose this way to make a concrete commitment to the reconstruction
of the Haitian media.

According to Mark Harvey, leading the European response for Internews,
an international media development organization which has been
designated by UNOCHA to coordinate all international media assistance
efforts to Haiti, Local journalists in Port-au-Prince are the vital link
between the humanitarian relief and the Haitian population who is
desperate for information. Haitian media professionals are struggling to
get back to their vital work, and the importance of the work of
Reporters Without Borders in helping to do this cannot be
underestimated.

This centre belongs to Haiti's journalists. Its ability to continue
operating in the medium term will depend on the technical and financial
assistance it receives from other NGOs, international bodies and
foreign
media.

Reporters Without Borders and Quebecor would finally like to pay
tribute to four journalists who died in the earthquake: Wanel Fils of
Radio Galaxie in Port-au-Prince, Franklin Laurent and Leiva Jasmin
(disappeared) of Radio Koha, and Bazelais Volcy of Radio Echo 2000 in
Petit-Goâve.
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