Election Pool coverage

The local elections in Timorese villages were the big event in October.

As it has done in the past two elections, ICFJ coordinated pool coverage with more than a dozen media outlets – including the Timor Post, Klaak, The Dili Weekly, Journal Diario Nacional, www.timortoday.com , www.cjitl.org , and ten radio stations, including RTK, a Catholic run station that broadcasts throughout Timor-Leste.

More than 30 journalists were involved in the pool coverage – fanning out across eleven of TL’s 13 districts to cover the local elections to be held in more than 400 villages. Many of these reporters worked out of ICFJ’s five Regional Media Houses – in Dili, Ermera, Suai, Oecusse and Baucau. The media houses played critical roles in the coverage, by providing journalists with a place to file their stories back to Dili using high-speed internet.

In the weeks before the election, ICFJ, The Asia Foundation and IFES provided training for TOTs, local journalists and volunteers at participating community radio stations. Trainings were held in Dili and at each of the other four media houses. In one case, the training was conducted at the community radio station in Alieu – because the manager could not travel due to her late-term pregnancy. So ICFJ brought the training to her.

Pool coverage began a few days before the October 9th elections with senior reporters setting up inside the media houses – working side-by-side with district reporters. Community radio volunteers, who had participated in ICFJ trainings, supplied the senior reporters at the media houses with raw data that was then converted into news stories.

Once the senior reporters had written their stories, they were sent via Skype to Dili where senior editors from Timor Post, Diario Nacional and CJITL (Center for Journalism Investigations Timor-Leste) edited the stories and sent them via carrier to media outlets participating in the pool coverage.

The community radio stations in the districts also received shortened versions of these stories. They were sent to the stations via mobile phone text-message as soon as the stories were edited – making for a timely flow of information back to the districts.

Mary Lou Schramm of IFES, a specialist in election law, spent Election Day at ICFJ providing support to senior editors. Journalism trainer Marianne Kearney was also on hand to offer guidance on fact-checking or any other editorial issues.

All of the print and audio material was placed on www.timortoday.com for a worldwide audience. More than 65 audio and print stories were filed during the pool period – which began on Wednesday, October 7 and continued until Saturday, October 10.

There were a few hiccups along the way, particularly on Election Day, October 9th, when ICFJ’s internet connection in Dili – failed. Fortunately, Skype continued to work, and reporters were able to send their stories and audio feeds by attaching them to Skype’s messaging service.

UNTL Journalism Training

In the days after the elections, several stories appeared in the Timor Post that were written by UNTL Social Communications students – including an enterprising story about how the election commission had received nearly 40 complaints. The story appeared on the front page of the Timor Post.

Another student produced a story marking International Hand Washing Day. The story had three sources, including a health official, and she used natural sound in the piece. The report was broadcast on Radio Akademika.

Still another student produced a story about student reactions to the compulsory teaching of Portuguese at universities. Radio Akademika, however, rejected the piece, arguing that it was too one-sided and needed to include an interview with the Education Ministry, for balance.

The students are part of ICFJ’s Journalism Training Program that embeds the Social Communications students with local newspapers. Forty students are participating in this program that will give each of them two weeks exposure to working in a newspaper office – and two more weeks working at UNTL’s campus radio station. Media participants, besides Timor Post, are The Dili Weekly, Journal Diario Nacional and UNTL’s Radio Akademika.

Stories

Several good stories – resulting from training sessions and TOT meetings – have appeared in the local newspapers during the month of October, including stories on the budget. One of the best stories revealed that the government could not provide a dollar figure on the cost of a series of public works projects timed to celebrate Timor’s ten year anniversary of the referendum package. The Timor Post also did stories on the budget, how it would affect people and where most of the money was being spent.

TOTs

ICFJ continues to mentor the newest group of TOTs. Trainer Marianne Kearney meets with them weekly to review their stories. One of these TOT, Caetano Alves of the Center for Journalism Investigations Timor-Leste, has begun training up to 40 would-be journalists in basic journalism techniques – skills he learned at ICFJ. His trainings include young reporters from Timor Post, Diario Nacional and Radio Timor-Leste.

Country Director Rice held his weekly Friday meetings with TOTs and began distributing copies of stories appearing in the New York Times and other papers – translated into Tetum. The articles make for interesting discussions.

Translated stories from various western papers are now distributed at each of the meetings – as a way to provide model writing to the TOTs. It also provides the trainers with an opportunity to find where the “gaps of knowledge” are in each reporter – as in the case with the use of quotes.

Media Law

ICFJ’s partner organization IREX hired Article 19 to carry out a comprehensive analysis of a draft of Timor-Leste’s National Policy on Mass Communication. Article 19 noted several serious concerns with the draft – including a policy that would require journalists to be licensed. ICFJ translated the document into Tetum and distributed it to Kolkos and other media organizations. A public hearing on the draft resolution is to be held in early 2010.

Media Awards Planning

Planning for the second annual Media Awards Dinner was in full swing in October – the date for the event has been set for November 21. It is to be held at the Presidential Palace. Several sponsors have pledged to fund the event – including a bank, a telecommunications company, and ICFJ, of course: ICFJ is helping organize the awards for the five journalism associations.

Printing Press

ICFJ is moving forward with plans to purchase a printing press for independent newspapers now that funding is in place. ICFJ’s Antonio Soares located a press in Jakarta and in November will travel there to make the purchase with an inspector and The Dili Weekly owner Otelio Ote. The printing press is to be trucked from Jakarta across Java to the port city of Surabaya, where it will be put on a ship bound for Dili. ICFJ is working with the newspapers to find a suitable site to set up the printing press.

Media Houses

The Baucau Media House became a movie house for one evening in mid-October. The facility was used by the Center for Journalism Investigations Timor-Leste to show the film “Balibo”. The movie is about the deaths of five international journalists during the invasion of Timor-Leste by Indonesia in 1975. The journalists worked for Australian media outlets.