Citizen-journalism and local & regional journalism in Tunisia

After having been overlooked for so long by national news programmes during the regime of President Ben Ali, the regional correspondents at both public and private media outlets are today still struggling to make themselves heard. Even though there is a recognised interest for local news, a 'media desert' has established itself around regional economic and cultural affairs.

With their services only rarely being called upon, local & regional journalists do not have the training, experience and resources needed to become a driving force in shaping the changing face of today's media. The divisions arising from the lack of any regional news coverage will ultimately hinder national cohesion and damage the democratisation process.

In order to overcome these problems, a number of local initiatives have been launched since the end of 2011, resulting in the formation of a network of citizen-journalist associations principally made up of young, eager and committed Tunisians who have made it their mission to report on local events across the entire country. Known as the ' Jaridaty' network, these citizen-journalists associations, which came together following the creation of the participatory blog Nawaat, are now seeking to establish themselves as local media outlets.

From this perspective, the 'Citizen-journalism and local & regional journalism in Tunisia' project is supporting the Al Khatt cooperative in order to continue transforming these associations into multimedia platforms, through the launch of two Internet radio stations and an Internet TV station. The project is also lending a hand to the team at Tunisie Bondy Blog, a regional media outlet that is seeking to put a training centre in place and play an active role in training up citizen-journalists. The overall aim is to help these local news reporters turn professional, and offer training courses in journalism to Tunisians from the central and southern regions of the country.