* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
A group of 14 Arab journalists, all of them keen and interested, learned about business reporting and sharpened their writing skills during a 5-day course held in Beirut, on September 26-30, 2011.
The workshop, organised by the Federation of Arab News Agencies (FANA), focused on economic developments and the workings of big and small businesses. The workshop, held at the FANA training centre, with a trainer from Thomson Reuters Foundation, was designed to help journalists work better in a situation of global economic turmoil.
The participants represented oil-exporting and oil importing countries, meaning a hugely different economic reality in their states.
“I will apply the criteria I learned into my stories, and disseminate it to others”, said participant Ihab Aldulrazig Abdallah from Sudan.
The participants, highly disciplined, worked smoothly, despite frequent electricity cuts.
The group was addressed by two guest speakers during the week. Dr Farid Ayar, Secretary General of FANA, spoke about the importance of regional media cooperation in covering economic events. Dominic Evans, Reuters bureau chief Levant who is based in Beirut, told the group about his vision of the economic situation in the region and experiences, good and bad, in covering business stories across the Middle East.
