EFJ Welcomes New Online Aid for Training of Journalists

The European Federation of Journalists today welcomed the final launch of the ‘Reporstag-e’ virtual training site for journalists at a Press conference in Samos, Greece gathering members of the Association Journalist of Provincial Press (ESET) on 11th June.

“We have reached an important target in providing free online training for journalists, particularly freelances who are often forced to take responsibility for their own training”, said Pamela Moriniere, project co-ordinator for the EFJ. “ The platform now directs journalists to more than 70 available online courses addressing new technology challenges for journalists”.

The press conference marked the conclusion of the final phase of a two-year project to develop a user friendly site for on-line training courses in ICTs. (www.reporstage.org/elearning/)

The launch of the Reporstag-e platform follows a two-month evaluation process whereby European journalists and media professionals were invited to test-run the web site and provide the Reporstag-e Consortium with input for further improvement of the platform. Digital photography, closely followed by themes covering searching the web, initiation to the internet and creating a web site were the most popular aspects taken up by journalists.

“A significant majority of respondents found the web site easy to use and welcomed the structure, the content and the overall design of the platform” says Mirena Geraki from Text and Color, coordinator of the project. “We also addressed the language issue so as to make the platform easily accessible for European journalists”.

“The journalistic landscape is constantly evolving, online journalism is growing, and communication amongst journalists remains essential in a digital world. We are working on follow up solutions to tackle these issues in the future of Reporstage”, said Pamela Morinière.

The Reporstag-e project is funded by the Leonardo Programme of the European Commission and includes the following partners:

• The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
• Université Libre de Bruxelles (Service Télématique et Communication)
• The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC)
• The Journalists' Association of Granada
• SCIENTER Espana
• Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT)
• The Association Journalist Provincial Press (ESET)
• MILITOS - Emerging Technologies and Services
• Text and Color

For further information please contact +32 2 235 22 16
The EFJ represents over 260,000 journalists in more than 30 countries