The first Women in News Forum in Egypt took place on Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at the Cairo Marriott Hotel and gathered more than 250 media executives, chief editors, media experts and journalists, as well as independent media actors in Egypt. More than 65 Egyptian and Arabic media organizations were represented during the forum.
Different issues related to the situation of women in Egyptian newsrooms were discussed during the forum, including gender balance, the importance of highlighting the rights and competences of female journalists outside Cairo, the role of women in changing stereotypes, the need to increase the number of female sources and experts, and the role of female journalists in increasing media coverage on women related issues inside their media organizations.
Panelists and speakers included, Chief editor of Al-Ahram al-Masaei, Alaa Thabet; Chief editor of Al- Shorouq newspaper Emadeddine Hussein; online managing editor of Al-Masry al-Youm newspaper Fathya Al-Dakhakhny; CEO of Mubasher Media International Assem Al-Bassal; Founder and chief editor of “Zaed 18” website Doaa Sultan, founder and managing editor of “Iskandarani” page at Welad al-Balad Doaa Jaber and managing editor of “E7ki” website Namees Arnous.
This forum is part of Women in News local activities in the four countries of the MENA region where the program is being implemented (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine) and will be followed by similar events in the other countries.
This event was organized complementarily to WAN-IFRA’s Media Management Training that was delivered in partnership with the American University of Cairo from 7 till 17 May 2017. The training gathered 28 prominent journalists from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine for 2 weeks of intensive training on media management certified by the AUC.
