Series of roundtable workshops on the Tunisian media, Tunis 28th and 29th June

The issue of media reform has been a recurring theme throughout Forward Thinking's Tunisian Political Dialogue Process, with Tunisians from all political backgrounds expressing their concerns that the Tunisian press fails to report events with even basic objectivity. A general consensus emerged that reform is required, but participants voiced understandable hesitations about interfering in hard-won press freedoms. Numerous participants in the dialogue expressed a keen interest in examining press regulation in the United Kingdom to see if there were potential lessons for Tunisia.Accordingly, Forward Thinking arranged an intensive series of roundtables in Tunisia,  aimed at identifying the main challenges currently facing the media and possible solutions for the contentious issues of media reform, regulation and governance. Across the two days, a series of separate workshops with members of the Tunisian youth; representatives of the judiciary; senior politicians and journalists met to discuss these issues before the different groups came together for a final discussion. Overseeing all of these meetings was Sir David Bell, the former editor and chairman of the Financial Times and an assessor in the Leveson Inquiry, who Forward Thinking had invited to Tunisia to facilitate discussion. Sir David's first-hand knowledge of the successes and failures of Britain’s efforts at media reform, regulation and governance, both enriched the discussion and  helped direct the conversation towards identifying what a  Tunisian solution to these questions might look like.The roundtables identified that some form of Press Code was vital to establish public trust in the Tunisia media, and debated what this code might look like and how it might be enforced. The issues of transitional justice, ownership of the media and new media, were also subject to in-depth discussion