QMC holds 8th meeting of GCC media training officials

A number of directors and heads of delegations participating in the 8th meeting of the GCC Standing Committee for Media Training Officials have confirmed that there is interest in training a new generation of broadcasters, editors and photographers to establish a consistent technical structure between the radio and television agencies of member states.
They pointed out that the meeting contributes to strengthening co-operation between the GCC countries, learning about the state-of-the-art developments in the media sector, and intensifying co-operation in the field of joint radio and television production because of the strategic dimension it represents in media relations between the GCC countries, as well as in achieving distinguished programme production.
Majri bin Mubarak al-Qahtani, director general of the Gulf Radio and Television Corporation, confirmed to the media that the agency aims to strengthen joint Gulf media work, in order to invest in youth and talents, and to create a new generation of young people capable of highlighting the Gulf identity and historical status.
Al-Qahtani thanked HE Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Thani al-Thani, CEO of the Qatar Media Corporation (QMC), for his efforts in strengthening Gulf co-operation at the media level. He said that there is a strategy to provide qualitative training in line with the requirements of this stage and the challenges of the future, such as crisis management, artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity and other fields that qualify the youth to keep pace with the new media.
Nasser al-Jaber, director of the Human Resources Department at QMC, indicated that this meeting aims to achieve integration between the media agencies in the co-operation countries, and to open channels of co-operation between media institutions. He also indicated that there is interest in training a new generation of media professionals to establish a consistent technical structure between the radio and television channels of the member states. Al-Jaber said programme production between the GCC countries is ongoing and has not stopped, and indicated that there is a plan to provide distinguished programme production by the end of this year.
Maryam Swailam, head of the Training Center at QMC confirmed that media training at the Gulf Radio and Television Agency began after its approval at the meeting of information ministers of the GCC countries, held in the Sultanate of Oman on October 9, 2002. Since 2005, the agency has begun organising specialised training courses for staff in member institutions in the GCC countries. During this period, 62 courses were offered for 1,659 trainees from the GCC countries, including 181 Qatari trainees. Noting that this 8th meeting of the Standing Committee for Media Training Officials seeks to continue the joint media work that all media training officials in the ministries and organisations of the Arab Gulf states aspire to.
Rasha al-Shajari, assistant director of the Development and Training Department at the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information, said that this meeting contributes to strengthening co-operation between the GCC countries and learning about the state-of-the-art developments in the media sector. In addition to achieving distinguished programme production and distinguished awareness programmes at a cost distributed among six countries instead of one country. She revealed the readiness of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information to offer a course in the field of radio and television drama production.
Asiya al-Balushi, director general of the Media Training Center in the Sultanate of Oman, explained that this meeting discussed ways and prospects for enhancing co-operation in the field of media training among the GCC countries. It was also noted that the Media Training Center in Oman had previously implemented many training programmes in co-operation with Gulf Radio and Television and member states. The most important of this was a course on applying artificial intelligence and employing it in media fields, and how to generate and create media content, in addition to ways of dealing with misleading news.