Otelio Ote smiled as he reached down on the printing press tray and picked up the newly-printed front page of The Dili Weekly. For the first time, he was printing his paper on a press that belongs to him and two other newspaper partners.

The Independent Printing Press of Timor-Leste, or IPPTL for short, is a project being implemented by ICFJ and funded by USAID and UNESCO. IPPTL is made up of three partners – besides The Dili Weekly, the partners are Timor Post and Kla’ak. Both plan to start printing on their press in September.

ICFJ’s Antonio Soares has overseen this project from the start – beginning with the procurement of the used Heidelberg Offset Press in Jakarta last year. Following the procurement, the printing press and various accessories were shipped from Jakarta to Surabaya, where the press was refurbished, spare parts were purchased and the equipment was placed on a ship bound for Dili, Timor-Leste.

As the press was making its way to Dili, renovations were being done on the building to house the equipment – including the pouring of a 70 centimeter thick floor – to accommodate the five ton printing press.

IPPTL will be operated as a for-profit business – and already at least two other newspapers have made inquiries about using the facility to print their papers. The Heidelberg is also capable of printing books, magazines, business cards and brochures.

Two trainers from Surabaya, Indonesia, set up the printing press and accessories and taught the local staff how to use everything.

Timortoday.com

The online news agency, Timortoday.com, adopted a new logo in August. The logo features a crocodile and was the top vote getter among the ICFJ staff in Dili during an election to select a new logo. Timortoday.com is now also on Facebook at www.facebook.com/timortoday -- and the new logo is featured prominently on the site.

The new Facebook page, launched on August 16, has helped bring new customers to the Timortoday.com website www.timortoday.com . For instance, during the last week of August, more than 400 visits to Timortoday.com were referred from the Facebook site. Thirty percent of these visitors were new to Timortoday.com.

Timortoday.com has been mainly a site for Tetum speakers only; however, in mid-August, ICFJ began adding subtitles to many of the video news package on the website. The aim is to attract a wider audience.

Singapore Journalism Students

Several students from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore spent several weeks in Timor-Leste as part of a program where journalism students from NTU produce print and broadcast stories as part of their field training. Three students opted to cover media development and visited several of ICFJ’s projects – including the newly-opened Regional Media House (UMR) and community radio station in Maubisse. They also interviewed Chuck Rice, the ICFJ country director, about media in Timor-Leste. The stories will be compiled in a university-produced magazine and DVD.

Training in Oecusse

International trainer Chloe Adams traveled to the enclave of Oecusse on August 24th for a three-day journalism training that focused on theory and practical skills.

The seven participants learned how to determine whether something is newsworthy, how to write their story in an interesting way and how to write a lead. Chloe used the new training manual that she help developed for the TOT (Training of Trainers) program. One of the exercises on newsworthiness focused on organizing news items in order of importance.

The participating journalists were from Business Timor, Tempo Semanal, Timor Post, Diario Nacional, Community Radio Oecusse and from UMR Oecusse.

Small Grants

ICFJ awarded small grants to two community radio stations in August. Dili-based Radio Lorico Lian was given 2,875.00 USD in order to purchase a new control room mixing board, a new PC and a motor bike for the staff to cover news stories. The other grant, of 2,827.00 USD, was awarded to Los Palos Community Radio. The funds will allow the station to obtain a new mixer, tape recorders, two computers and fuel for their generator. The station has city electricity only six hours per day and relies on a generator in order to broadcast for an additional three to four hours.

Media Houses

ICFJ’s six media houses continue to function normally, with National Coordinator Manuel Ximenes working closely with the UMR coordinators. In August, Manuel developed a UMR volunteer policy for all the media houses. There are occasions when members of the community want to volunteer their time at the UMR in order to learn new skills – until now the UMRs have had no set guidelines for volunteers. Manuel also conducted management refresher courses at the media houses in Ermera and Maubisse – working with Jaime Soares and Joaquim Coutinho, respectively, on their work plans, management techniques and grant writing.

ICFJ Program Consultant Hans Staiger visited Timor Leste in August and had a chance to visit two of the six media houses. In Maubisse, he got a look at the newest media house and was interviewed live on the community radio station, which is housed in the UMR.

Hans also visited the media house in Baucau, where he happened to notice a line of young people standing outside a game center next door to the UMR. When he learned that the young people were waiting to pay one US dollar to play games on the Sony Play Station, he suggested that UMR Coordinator Candida Belo invite them over to the Media House internet café to spend their dollars there. Since that suggestion, Candida has been shepherding those waiting in line to play games over to the UMR internet café – where she’s been introducing them to social networking sites – like Facebook – and collecting their one dollar bills. In August, the UMR Baucau made 380.00 USD from internet café sales – the most it has ever made in a single month.

Training of Trainers (TOT) Program

ICFJ is completing work on a training manual for journalism trainers. The project was lead by international trainer Chloe Adams, with input from trainer Budi Setyo as well as from participants in the TOT program. There are more than 10 chapters – with topics such as lead writing, newsworthiness, story structure, story development, clarity and one chapter devoted to broadcast journalism.

The manual will get a test drive by the TOTs in the middle of September when four new TOTs will join the group. The original group of TOTs will use the manual to begin training these new TOT’s. The original TOTs will also use the training manual when they conduct journalism trainings at the media houses beginning in October.

Six candidates applied for the TOT positions and each was given a baseline test to determine their journalism skill level. Based on the results, four of the six candidates were selected for the program. The training will get underway in mid-September and – unlike previous TOT trainings – most of these sessions will be taught by TOTs themselves using the new training manual. They will also get support from international trainers.

Training in Maubisse

Trainer Budi Setyo conducted a four-day basic journalism training at the new Maubisse Media House beginning August 9th. All nine participants were new to journalism. Some of the trainees live in Maubisse, but the remaining ones came from neighboring regions of Same, Ainaro and Aileu.

The training covered both theory and practice – in the areas of ethics, story development, lead writing, interviewing and story writing, and they learned how to use the digital editing software Adobe Audition.

Meet the Press

ICFJ’s Special Projects Coordinator Frances Suni moderated the August edition of Meet the Press, and the focus was on Timor’s horrible road conditions. It made for a lively discussion with more than fifteen print and broadcast journalists questioning the two guests -- Domingos Caeiro, Secretary of State for Public Services and Arcenio Paixao Bano, vice president of Fretilin Party.

Welcome New Staffers at ICFJ-TL!