Shboul underscores importance of media education

AMMAN — Minister of State for Media Affairs Faisal Shboul  on Monday highlighted the importance of media outlet’s role in countering rumours and hate speech.

During a meeting at the Prime Ministry with radio presenters, Shboul, who is also the government spokesperson, said that media should improve their presence given the information flow over social media platforms, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

He highlighted the importance of raising awareness of the concepts of media education, especially for the younger generation.  

The minister also stressed  the need to separate legislation and honour charters and laws applied to the media from those governing the operations of social media platforms.

Talks also covered the challenges facing media platforms, notably the decline in advertising revenues due to the growing number of advertising channels, notably social media platforms, with Shboul emphasising the need for resolving these new challenges. 

He also said that a long-term government plan is “in the pipeline”. The plan intends to train Jordanian graduates of journalism and media to respond to the labour demands of the media organisations.

To ensure the flow of information and enhance government communication with the media, the government has recently completed the first phase of a training programme for the government's media spokespersons, which was held in cooperation with the Jordanian Media Institute and UNDP, he said.

Shboul also referred to the two events related to naming Irbid as the Capital of Arab culture for 2022, and Madaba as the Arab tourism capital for 2022, stressing that both events will be optimised to promote tourism in Jordan and enhance the Kingdom’s cultural status by hosting Arab figures and holding cultural weeks.

The attendees highlighted the importance of enhancing government contact with radio stations, emphasising the need to operationalise the role of ministries' media spokespersons to counter rumours that target national  achievements.