Measuring Journalistic Integrity - Mazen Nahawi, MD, Media Watch

Key trends in Arab journalism

- Influence of modern PR in Journalism. The first question that they ask me is that the PR professionals have an impact on them. The champion of modern journalism is the PR professional. Journalists need PR and vice versa. Theres nothing wrong in the way things are going.
- Large no. of journos who need experience
- State control declining
o New generation of enlightened leadership
o Economic necessity
o Courage of Arab journos, human rights campaigns
o International media availability


- Advent of Social media



Journalist integrity : impact on measurement
Content is an important part of measurement, we make recommendations and assessments based on the content analysis. Only a few PR companies are focusing on quality and it is important that the context in which it is appearing is credible in itself.

Good analysis, untrustworthy media
- The consequences
a) heavy investment in time, money lost
b) results of media content analysis are unreliable

Is the context true ?


Issues in the age of citizen journalism
- 45 million Arabs on the net
- Burgeoning blog movement especially in Saudi and Egypt
- Mainstream media increasingly dependent on blogs
- Are bloggers reliable journalists ?

PR must evaluate integrity and credibility of social media.






What are we looking for ?? when evaluating integrity ….

Homework:
- Study the ownership of each media you target/ evaluate
- Demand transparency about their mission, values
- Do you know about Dar Al Khaleej
- Do you know the diff between Dar Al Khaleej ( started by the UAE by local journalistic family) and AMG ( govt. owned)

Discover the media – meet journos and suss them out. Check their skill levels and knowledge level. Whaat distribution methods are they using. Who are their audiences, are they audited ?? ( 86 papers only).


Ethics – personal integrity
- Are they on time
- Do they ask about gift items
- Do they give credit where it is due
- Do they work with a conscience
- Are they responsive to feedback, criticism, public interest

Start of measurement planning
- Focus on building relationships with credible journalists
- Get to know who the credible journalists are before planning a campaign; it helps throughout. Depending on their stature.

Tools for measuring
- Databases on what media are audited
- Surbeys on readership, audience segmentation, trust
- Fact sheets / databases on elite journos
a) Which journos stay in their positions, rise through the ranks
b) Whose writing is credible
- Participation in journalism awards, blogger conferencecs