The Lebanese media tackled the oil and gas sector 122 times in articles and written, TV and electronic reports, from February 1 and April 15, 2014, but errors appeared in half of these documents and there was on average only one source per article. This is one of the major trends raised by a SKeyes Center report tackling the Lebanese media coverage of the oil and gas sector. SKeyes released the document during a press conference held at Al-Bustan Hotel on August 7, 2014. As the main pillar of any democracy is citizens’ access to accurate information, media have the duty to enlighten the public opinion, especially when it comes to strategic issues. Indeed, the oil and gas sector shall be an integral part of Lebanese people’s lives for the years to come.
Previous Lebanese experiences in administering strategic sectors have not proven very successful, as the SKeyes Center’s executive director, Ayman Mhanna said during the conference. However, “frustration is not fate if adequate measures are prospectively taken to ahead of the extraction of hydrocarbons. Media should play an important role in informing the public opinion and communicating accurate information.” He also mentioned some of the recommendations listed in the report, such as the need to verify the accuracy of information, vary the sources, ensure that media institutions have access to specialized training on the energy sector, and tackle the social, environmental and legal aspects of the oil and gas sector, instead of only focusing on political news.
Also, Mhanna announced the launch, within a few months, of a new application for smart phones, providing a fact-checking feature for public officials’ statements on the oil and gas sector, aimed at holding them accountable, whenever they provide false information. Teams affiliated with several Lebanese media institutions will also be provided with personalized training programs in order to improve their coverage of the energy sector.
Mona Sukkarieh, co-founder of Middle East Strategic Perspectives, spoke about the report she helped drafting, and which was then distributed to the audience. The report showed that media have a clear preference for political news coverage at the expense of other types of coverage (technical, investigative, educational, and informative) and revealed the presence of one mistake for every two articles published. Also, most of the subjects relied on one source of information only.
Kelli Arena, executive director of the Global Center for Journalism and Democracy (GCJD), said during the event: “Our goal is to strengthen journalists’ skills and thus contribute to the development of society by providing accurate, credible and professional information.” GCJD has partnered with SKeyes since March 2013 to train Lebanese journalists on covering the energy sector.
Journalists specialized in covering the oil and gas sector face numerous challenges on a daily basis. The conference hosted trainers Dania El-Saadi and Christopher Coats, two journalists with extensive experience covering the energy sector. El-Saadi discussed the principles of good coverage, highlighting the common mistakes that are likely to occur. She also emphasized the importance of understanding very well the data before publishing numbers. She stressed on the need to present data in an easy, accurate and detailed manner, and to attend conferences and read specialized magazines to obtain information from various sources. It is also important to cross-check numbers and statements, and to consult the publications of oil companies, as well as their websites.
Coats highlighted important tools used to write online about the energy sector and the need to use social media in order to gather information and communicate with experts and companies. He mentioned that online coverage is not different from print media in terms of methodology given the utmost importance to verify facts and numbers, mention the sources, simplify complex economic data, use graphs, and be well prepared for interviews and aware of companies’ activities and performance. However, covering the oil and gas sector is also based on the use of social media to communicate with a larger number of people and observe their reactions. Resorting to videos and electronic links is also important, hence the need to use graphs, tables, as well as attractive visual and interactive tools.
This event was a part of a larger oil and gas media program that SKeyes has launched with support from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in cooperation with Middle East Strategic Perspectives and the Global Center for Journalism and Democracy.
