30/04/2008

An Aberdeen media and communications agency has been hired by Middle East broadcaster, Al Jazeera, to help train its staff.

AVC Media Enterprises will be working with staff serving Europe and America. The training will include documentary making and editing.

Al Jazeera English is the first global English-language news channel to have its headquarters in the Middle East. It is  building on sister channel, Al Jazeera Arabic’s success in changing the face of news in the Middle East.

AVC director, Spencer Buchan, said the contract came as a result of a conversation at a business breakfast when the managing director of a translation company suggested it might be worth contacting Al Jazeera, with whom he had a contract. Said Buchan: "That is exactly what I did."

He continued: "I carried out a little bit of research and discovered they were making a push into Europe and eventually America and that they had a substantial media training centre in Doha [Qatar]. They try to find western organisations like ourselves which have the academic skills, combined with the hands-on experience, to pass on these experiences and skills to their workforce."

Buchan spent a week in Doha examining the Al Jazeera set-up to identify where AVC's skills could be used. "We are currently in Doha doing a three-week course on documentary making for TV, and also planned are courses in TV journalism, filming, editing, and public relations.

"The facilities in Doha are second to none. They are already providing a quality service and our aim is to fine-tune the skills of the team and share knowledge to increase the channel's diversity in the media industry.”

* Send your Scottish media news and gossip, in the strictest confidence, to  info@allmediascotland.com