Mainstreaming health promotion in the media is an innovative training programme launched by WHO’s Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean to enhance the journalism skills of media professionals in the Region and raise their awareness on public health issues. The training is held in partnership with two leading media organizations — Thomson Reuters Foundation and Agence France-Presse Foundation, as well as the Arab States Broadcasting Union and a number of regional media and public health experts.

In order to provide the journalists with the highest standards of journalism skills, the Thomson Reuters Foundation and Agence France-Presse Foundation will be providing the skills-building part of the training, while WHO experts will be providing the health knowledge part of the training. The programme consists of a 2-week training course followed by 3 months of distance mentoring during which journalists work with mentors to prepare a number of assignments and a final project. Once the journalists have successfully completed the 2-week course, and submitted the required assignments and final project which is graded, they are eligible to graduate and receive certificates of achievement.

The competency-based training consists of three key components:  

• capacity-building through a 2-week training course
• 3 months of distance mentoring 
• networking between media and health professionals.

The training curriculum consists of didactic sessions on topics ranging from ethics in journalism, researching and verifying sources, story development, interview techniques, and using social media. As the training will be implemented in a number of countries throughout the Region, health topics presented by WHO and regional health experts will be selected based on each country’s priority health programmes.

Learning outcomes

At the end of the training, participants will have acquired the following knowledge and competencies:

• Ethics and standards in journalism
• Interview skills
• Planning and developing a story
• Understanding and humanizing numbers
• Researching and verifying data
• Understanding and using social media
• Health issues in their country.