By Noreldin Waisy I saw many programs and read many articles about the quantity and quality of the media in Kurdistan in several Kurdish TV channels last week. I have also attended many conferences and seminars about the same topic in which the majority of the participants agreed that the media in Kurdistan is struggling with being unprofessional.
The participants asked how to solve the problems and the challenges that face the media in Kurdistan. Unfortunately no practical step has been taken towards solving those issues. The speeches have not been turned into deeds. The political parties, Kurdistan Regional Government, the Ministry of Culture and the Journalist Syndicate are all responsible for the mess that the media in Kurdistan is in, because it is not fair to let people to establish magazines, newspapers, radio stations and television channels without meeting any conditions under the name of freedom of expression.
For example someone who is not an engineer cannot run engineering office, or if someone is not a doctor he cannot run a clinic. So if someone is not journalist and does not have enough experience in this field, is it fair to allow him or her to publish a magazine or newspaper? The Ministry of Culture and Journalist Syndicate should not allow someone to publish a magazine or a newspaper or to be an editor-in-chief if he or she does not have enough experience in journalism.
In developed countries where the freedom of expression is guaranteed for everybody according to the law, getting to the position to be in charge of a newspaper is not achieved easily. In those countries you should follow some steps to be editor in chief.
One of the main tasks of the new KRG cabinet should be reorganizing the conditions of media in Kurdistan. It is important that Prime Minister Dr. Barham Ahmed Saleh forms an experienced committee to study the conditions of media and journalism in Kurdistan that comes up with good recommendations for bringing back the media to its original professional path. Before doing anything the government should start with a housecleaning strategy; is necessary to ban all the magazines and publications that are published by the ministries that don’t have any readership.
© Rudaw
