Empowering Journalists for Quality Journalism
Kh.Naranjargal

C

ompletely landlocked between China and Russia, Mongolia is oneof the sparsely populated countries in the world. It embraced democracy by guaranteeing the rights and freedoms of its citizens in
the 1992 Constitution.
Mongolian journalists and media played a great role in the democratic
movement that started at the end of 1980s. One of the demands of the firstpolitical hunger strike in March 1990 was liberalization of the governmentcontrolled broadcast media, the only one existing in the country at that time.
On its path towards media freedom, Mongolia has seen some inspiring developments but has also faced major setbacks. Following the political transition in 1990, print media sprang up extensively, and since the late
1990s a host of electronic media programs were launched. As a result of the1998 Media Freedom Law, government-owned newspapers were privatizedand the only Mongolian radio and TV stations at that time were converted
into public broadcasting service companies according to the Law on the
Public and Radio and Television passed by the Parliament in 2005.
The actual media output in the capital as well as the countryside isimpressive both in number and variety. According to the Mongolian Press
Institute survey, there were 446 media outlets at the end of 2016 serving a
population of 3.1 million people, 25 percent of them operating in the rural
areas. The number of news websites radically increased to ninety-six websites in 2016. More than sixty TV stations are located in Ulaanbaatar, thecapital, out of recorded total of two hundred eighty broadcast stations allover the country. The number of daily newspapers dropped from sixteen to
fourteen. A total of 4,716 media practitioners work in the media field and 66
percent are journalists. Six newspapers are published in English and otherforeign languages.
Journalism Education in Mongolia
Since the collapse of communism, Mongolia has faced the challenge ofbuilding an entirely new media system that meets the requirements of a
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Mongolia journalists covering an event.

young democratic state. While inspired by the social and political changes,
Mongolian journalists had to learn the concept and principles of democratic journalism. The training of journalists and media management training
are vital parts in the equation. For this reason many multilateral organizations and non-governmental organizations (ngos) in Mongolia have been
extraordinarily active in Mongolia in terms of journalism training over the
past years.
Until 1990, journalism was only taught at the State University ofMongolia. The State University of Mongolia started only one class on journalism for the first time in 1961. By now, a total of seventeen journalism colleges and universities offer journalism courses in Ulaanbaatar and most ofthem are privately run. On average, these schools have a total student bodyof around 1,500 students at any given time.
The curriculum and course syllabuses of those schools were developedin compliance with Journalism bachelor education standard approved bya resolution of the National Council of Standardization and Metrology in
2003. Therefore, the contents of these curriculums are similar. However,each school has a right to develop and enrich curriculum content dependingon their schools’ specifics. Thus, schools improve their curriculums every
two to three years which have to be verified by the Professional Education

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Authority of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sports. About
25-35 percent of all courses taught in the undergraduate journalism program are about democratic ideals and their development. For example,
the General Education courses include subjects on History of Mongolia,
Politics, Theory of Economics, Contemporary International Relations, andBasics of State and Justice. The Journalism Foundation courses have subjects on Mass Communication Theory, International Journalism, Historyof Mongolian Journalism, Investigative Journalism, Civic Journalism andPractical Journalism. Most universities have their own studio, computerlaboratory and reporters’ facilities.
The Journalism Higher Education Organization of Mongolia supported
the publication in 2010 of the Mongolian language version of the unesco
series on journalism education entitled Model Curricula for Journalism
Education in Developing Countries & Emerging Democracies translated by
the Press Institute of Mongolia. Copies of the publication were distributed
to university instructors. Within the framework of the project, seven Basic
Journalism and Practical Journalism class syllabuses were improved and theCurriculums for Development Journalism were done anew. Professors andtutors of ten public and private universities worked as a team in developing
the seven journalism syllabuses of universities. Currently, most Journalism
Schools (except the State University of Mongolia) follow the “Model
Curricula for Journalism Education (eight classes) in Mongolia.”
The unesco study entitled The Mongolian Media Landscape. Sector
Analysis conducted by Media Consultant Anke Redl, cmm Intelligence(China) and Associate Professor Poul Erik Nielsen, University of Aarhus,
Denmark published in December 2006 states:1
While there are a great number of journalism schools,
there are no media management courses. Fifteen years since
Mongolia’s move to democracy, there is still little to no understanding of how to manage and grow an independent and balanced media outlet that exists for the sake of providing free andindependent information or for the sake of being a business initself, without having to depend on political and/or businesssupport.
This conclusion remains valid until now.

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The 2016 report entitled Assessment of Media Development of Mongolia2that used the unesco Media Development Indicators notes that3
Most of the training mentioned under indicator 4.1 hastargeted junior to medium-ranking reporters rather than managers. The first major training event targeting media managers
was in 1998, when the World Association of Newspapers, incooperation with the Mongolian Publishers’ Association andwith the support of the Free Press Foundation (a danida-established independent printing house), conducted a newspaper
management training which resulted in the launch of the firstnewspaper advertisements. In the following years between 2000
and 2014, about 10 training events were organized by the Press
Institute specifically for media executives. In 2012, gic [Global
International Center] trained ten community radio managers intheir workplace.
This unesco-funded assessment also gives an overview of professional
media training:4
In 1996, the Mongolian Free Democratic Journalists
Association organized the first training course for a wide rangeof media workers introducing the principles of media independence and professionalism and describing the role of a free,pluralist and professional media in a democracy and for election coverage. Since then, three non-academic institutions
had been the main players in systematically providing training courses on democratic and professional journalism: theMongolian Journalists Association, the Press Institute (PI) andGlobe International Center (gic). Most of these training events
have been made possible through the assistance of international
donors, including bilateral donors (danida, usaid, jica, sida),
the European Union (tasis programme, EC projects), overseas foundations (the Asia Foundation, Open Society Institute,Friedrich Ebert Stiftung), international governmental organizations (igos) (unesco, undp, WB) and international non-governmental organizations (ingos).
The training topics include a wide range of issues on democracy anddevelopment such as good governance, anti-corruption, anti-violence, social justice, equality as well as reporting on human rights, politics, economy,business, gender, environment etc. Investigative journalism has been a part

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129of the training program of Globe International Center (gic) which started
with the unesco ipdc (International Programme for the Development ofCommunication) project in 2005 in cooperation with the Zorig Foundation
and Press Institute.
A number of the training programs offered by the international projects
as part of their information and communication programs include the issues of good governance, economy, environment, health, etc.
However, apart from the heavy investment in mid-career training anddespite almost all journalists being able to cite the virtues of a free and responsible press, the standard of Mongolian journalism has very little improvement in the interim.
The assessment of the media development was undertaken by gic in cooperation with the Confederation of Mongolian Journalists, Press Instituteand Transparency Fund in 2015.
Legal environment for the Mongolian media
In 2002, gic conducted the first ever study on Mongolian laws and the media in cooperation with Article 19, a London-based international ngo andpublished the report entitled “Mongolia in Transition. Legal Analysis of theDomestic Legislation Affecting Freedoms of Expression and Information.”
Since that time, gic remained the most active group in reviewing the national laws and advocating for favorable legal environment for the media.
The Mongolian Constitution guarantees its citizens the right to publish and freedoms of expression and information. The 1998 Law on Media
Freedom bans censorship, prohibits the government from owning media
outlets and states that the Parliament shall not adopt any laws restricting
media freedom. The law also obliges the media outlets to take responsibility
for their publications and programs.
The Law on Information Transparency and Right to Information(litri), passed on 16 June 2011, was ranked 65th in the global right to information rating (out of 111 countries).5
Under Article 18 of the litri, information will not be made public (1)if there are well-grounded reasons that the public release of the concerned
information might be detrimental to the national security and public interest of Mongolia (18.1.1), (2) if the concerned information is related to mattersunder review by the Mongol Bank, the Financial Regulatory Commission,

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or by the state administrative organizations in charge of competition or specialized inspection (18.1.2), and (3) if it is necessary to protect state secrets,organizations and/or individuals during the process of inquiry, investigationand prosecution (18.1.3). Litri also protects intellectual property (Article19), personal secrets (Article 20) and secrets of any organization or business
entity (article 21). Disclosure of intellectual property-related information isprohibited without the permission by the owner (19.1).
The regime of exceptions of litri is problematic for the following
reasons:• It fails to protect key confidentiality interests and renders confidential some issues that should be open;• Many exceptions are not harm-based; and• There is no public interest override to ensure that information ofsignificant public interest is disclosed.
Gic lobbied for the enactment of this law for seven years. In practice,the implementation of the law is very weak and awareness of the citizens
and public officials on the law is still poor.
Civil and Criminal Defamation
Reputation is protected by civil and criminal defamation laws. Gic’s free
expression monitoring reports reveal that there were twenty-seven criminal
defamation cases between 2005 and 2012, but only seventeen in 2013-2015.6
All the plaintiffs of criminal defamation cases in Mongolia were elected authorities, powerful public officials and public organizations including the
Speaker of the Parliament, Prime Minister and Ministers. For example, inthe criminal defamation case filed by Prime Minister N. Altankhuyag against
an editor-in-chief and two other journalists, the Chilgeltei District Court
convicted the defendants and fined them twenty million Mongolian Tughrik(mnt) (approximately 11,000 US dollars) with three-month imprisonment
in case of failure to pay the fine. The Supreme Court sustained the decisionof the Appeals Court and fined Defendants with over fourteen million mnt(approximately 7,800 US dollars).
Criminal defamation has become alarming for social media users. On 18
August 2014, the Initial Court found Ts. Bat, a Twitter blogger, guilty of insulting and libelling A. Gansukh, the Minister of Road and Transportation.

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Ts. Bat was arrested and detained for three months and ten days. On appeal,
the court decided on 9 September 2014 to further investigate the case andreleased Ts. Bat on bail.
In 2017, a new Criminal Law repealed the provisions on libel and insult.
The Law on Administrative Offenses now imposes fines equal to 2,000,000
mnt to individuals and 20,000,000 mnt to legal entities for disclosing anddistributing through mainstream and social media information defaming
the honor and dignity of a person. However, general criminal defamation
remains under the new Criminal Law.
Reputation is protected by Article 497 of the Civil Code, but there are
two main problems: 1) the law allows public bodies to bring defamation legal
action and 2) places the onus on the person who disseminated the allegedly
defamatory statement to prove that information was “accurate” or that it
was “truthful”. This poses a significant burden on the defendant and has achilling effect on freedom of expression.
Freedom of Expression During Elections
On 25 December 2015, the new Election Law was enacted and it integrated
the regulations of the previous Parliamentarian and Presidential elections.
Article 70 titled “Prohibition of the Illegal Campaigns” imposes more restrictions on media, online and messaging spaces by prohibiting them from
distributing any type of information which is false, libelous or insulting
and any type of activities with purpose of “determining political ranking”(Article 70.1.6), or “call on citizens to refrain from voting” (Article 70.5.7).
Furthermore, a ban is placed on printing or publication of news, picturesand materials of any type as well as broadcast of songs related to religion inelection broadcast programs that disseminate false information, and materials that are libelous and insulting to people (Article 70.5.13). Media bodies
are required to sign an agreement and pledge not to release all types of information and news about any parties participating in the election, during
the election campaign (Article 70.7).
Sanctions against media are included in various parts of the Election
Law, such as the following:• A media body found guilty by a court of disseminating, publishing
and airing “flashy” and false information on parties, coalitions and

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candidates, shall reimburse the expenses spent for the campaign(Article 70.8);
In case websites breach the provision against “determining political ranking” (Article 70.1.6), the Communications and Regulatory
Committee (crc) shall terminate the license for six months basedon the conclusion of the government administrative organization
responsible for fair competition;
Radio and television stations that breach the law shall be warned
once; but repeated violations would allow the organization whichissued their license to order their operations to stop until the voting
day (Article 82.19);
In the case of the breaches specified in this chapter, license of thebroadcasters shall be terminated until six months from the day
breach occurred (Article 82.21);
In case, the identity of the bodies and media individuals who
breached this provision could not be determined, the website
shall be blocked until the end of the voting by the regulatory body
(Article 83.7);
Procedures on election campaigns on radio and television andon their monitoring shall be adopted by the Central Election
Organization and the crc in accordance with Article 82.17. The
crc shall monitor election advertising and may take measures toprevent violations of the law or stop the violations in cooperation
with police, election organizations and specialized non-governmental organizations (Article 82.18).

The involvement of the government entities (Authority for the Fair
Competition and Customers and the crc) on election campaigns throughthe media encourages government censorship, in violation of the Media
Freedom Law.
Safety of Journalists
Mongolia does not have legal protection for whistleblowers or for journalists’ confidential sources, and it tends to prohibit journalists from remaining
anonymous.

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The Globe International Center (gic), which has been monitoring free
expression violations since 2005 and produces the annual Media Freedom
Report, recorded three hundred thirty-two violations of journalists’ professional rights during the 2011-2016 period. This is not the complete number of violations because many journalists do not publicly report them. The
number of court cases against journalists increased to fifty-two during the
2011-2016 period. In 2016, 52.5 percent of cases of violations out of a totalof sixty-one cases were against websites and the social media, 26.2 percent
against broadcast media, 14.8 percent against print and 6.5 percent against
individuals and freelancers. More than 57 percent of free expression violators are politicians, high government authorities, public officials and publicbodies.
Globe International Center and Journalism Training
Gic was founded in 1999 with the mission of supporting Mongolian democracy and civil society by spreading the power of information and knowledge.
Its vision is to establish a democratic culture, with informed and empowered citizens.
Besides Ulaanbaatar, gic operates in eight aimags (provinces) and twenty remote soums (provincial districts). In ten soums of four western aimags
where national and ethnic minorities dominate, gic established community
radios with the support of unesco, Beijing Cluster.
Gic strongly believes that information leads to change and the public’s
right to free expression, access to information and free and independent
media are essential to consolidating and developing a democratic, civil, andhealthy society which respects human rights and truly serves the public.
Its strategic message is “Informed People are Powerful” which translates into considering the media as the primary source of information for thepeople. Necessarily, an independent media is essential; and without accessto accurate public information, citizens are not aware of their rights andfreedoms.
Gic’s strategy is organized through complementary and inter-related
programs:
1. Supporting the rights of independent media to play a leading rolein the development of democracy and society. The program priorities are free expression monitoring and legal aid to journalists,

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the creation of a more favorable media legal framework, media andelections, media and gender, community media, specialized and investigative reporting;
Promoting Good and Transparency Governance to improve governance and social accountability in public institutions that would
enable them to provide a truly good public service. The program
priorities are promotion of government transparency and social accountability, and community development and civic engagement;
Empowering the Public through Information and Communication
and Arts is aimed at education and community-level communication systems supportive of the creation of an environment for
citizens to exercise their rights. The priorities under this program
are the use of the United Nations human rights mechanisms forhuman rights advocacy, anti-corruption legislation awareness raising, fighting gender-based violence and protection of human rights
defenders.

Gic conducts various studies, surveys and monitoring of media-related
issues including the implementation of the Right to Information (rti) Law.
It also holds capacity-building activities to train ordinary citizens on monitoring government transparency. Gic has been conducting media monitoring on presidential and parliamentary elections coverage since 2004. It lobbied for the enactment of the Law on the Public Radio and Television for five
years and monitored the transition process of the state broadcasting office
into a public service institution in 2006.
Gic translated the unesco Gender Sensitive Indicators for Media andpiloted it on the Mongolian National Broadcaster (mnb), Mongolian public service broadcasting company, Ulaanbaatar Broadcasting System (ubs),
a private TV channel and Confederation of Mongolian Journalists as wellconducted a comparative content analysis of coverage about women politicians in media in 2012.
Since its establishment, gic has been the ngo most actively advocating
the issues of freedom of expression (namely, public service broadcasting,protection of sources, freedom of information, decriminalization of defamation, state secrecy law reform, community media), and directly engaged
in attending the sessions of the United Nations human rights mechanisms.

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Gic is the Secretariat of the National Committee of unesco’s International
Program for Development of Communication (ipdc).
Empowering the Journalists
Over the last fifteen years, gic has trained more than one thousand journalists through more than forty workshops and training programs.
With four out of five founders of gic being former journalists, gic believes that a strong and independent journalist is able to produce accurate
and powerful stories that truly serve the public interest.
The small media market in Mongolia is highly saturated; there is nofair market competition and economic conditions do not allow media tothrive as business. Influential politicians and business groups close to thosein power own most of media outlets. Training at the journalism schools andngos tends to focus on how to operate in an ideal, professional media market, rather than on the one that actually exists. Once graduates are released
into the world, they find that the skills they were taught at university do not
apply to the conditions they have to operate in. The situation is aggravatedby the financial dependence of journalists on the local government, as isoften the case in the rural areas, or by the small community environment
where journalists dare not speak freely for fear of being ostracized fromtheir community.
Despite all the challenges and problems, gic strives to empower thejournalists and promote quality journalism. Powerful journalists play a vitalrole in the editorial culture and are a value to any media outlet.
The journalists are vulnerable when they are ill-informed about theirduties and are unaware of ethical, responsible and accountable journalism.
The gic strategy in empowering journalists is based on the 3Ms:
Medeeleltei (Informed), Medlegtei (Knowledgeable) and Mergeshsen(Specialized).
Foremost to a journalist’s everyday job, is being informed of political,
economic and social matters - understanding international media and journalistic communities.
Secondly, journalists should be knowledgeable about the environment(legal and otherwise) they work in, and the conditions for effective media.
They should have the know-how to protect themselves and ensure their own
safety and security.

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H U M A N R I G H T S E D U C AT I O N I N A S I A - PA C I F I CJournalists should specialize on topics they cover to gain community
confidence as well as public trust. The journalists should be human rightssensitive while covering political, economic and social issues.
Gic holds general training programs on professional reporting associated with topics on ethical, responsible and accountable journalism. As partof specialized reporting, gic educates on reporting on human and disability
rights, gender, elections, mining issues, court trials, etc. It cooperates with
the Independent Agency against Corruption (iaac) and other civil society
organizations on educating the journalists on anti-corruption legislationand issues.
Digital security and safety are essential elements of the gic programs.
Workshops on corruption risks associated with mining sector and digital security have been held in cooperation with Marcel Oomens from the Dutch
ngo Free Press Unlimited and funded by the United Nations Development
Program (undp), Mongolia.
The first gic training on human rights reporting was organizedin 2002 with the support of the United Nations (UN) Office of the HighCommissioner for Human Rights (ohchr). Six selected female columnists
from six daily newspapers based in the capital were trained on how to coverchild and women issues. Since then, gic has published educational materials that included issues such as domestic violence, child abuse, persons withdisabilities, women participation in decision-making as well as how to use
the UN human rights mechanisms.
The development of investigative journalism is a leading priority ofprofessional training in Mongolia. With unesco funding in 2005, gic organized the first investigative journalism training in cooperation with theZorig Foundation and the Press Institute, under the banner of “Media forTransparent Governance.” Workshops promoted discussion and conveyedideas on how to develop investigative journalism in Mongolia.
Gic subsequently organized two basic investigative reporting training
for forty journalists from Ulaanbaatar and the provinces. Following-on, four
teachers of the Press Institute held hands-on workshops for Ulaanbaatarbased journalists that led to the formation of four collaborative projects
that gathered information for corruption stories in education, health, environment and economic sectors. The course deepened the knowledge forjournalists on research, data analysis, building a database, finding sources,
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principles of teamwork and innovation. Since teamwork was not widely recognized by journalists, there was an initial difficulty in creating an atmosphere of trust and understanding. However, due to the efforts of trainers,
journalists saw the benefits of teamwork.
The journalists’ research reports were translated into English andsent to international expert, Yvonne Chua, from the Philippine Center for
Investigative Journalism. She later came to Mongolia and conducted consultancy training: “Packaging Stories for Investigative Journalism.” Following
her evaluation of the four teams’ investigative reports, she stressed to thejournalists the importance of:
1. Independent verification of allegations made by human sources ordocuments through multiple sourcing (e.g., the health team relied
only on the letter alleging wrongdoing against the former Chief
Executive Officer [ceo]);
2. Adequate research to understand the law, processes and systems
before launching investigations (e.g., the environment team failed
to study fully the law and decrees/orders on protected areas. The
agriculture team has not checked international standards);
3. Providing context (e.g., the health team still did not know muchabout the history of the company and the former ceo);
4. Adequate documentation (e.g., the education team was unable tophotograph the transactions between the applicant and middleperson); and5. Obtaining as much information as possible from important sources
at first meeting (e.g., the agriculture team assumed it would be given a copy of the full report, only to discover that the state inspector
later refused to cooperate after premature publication of the reportsummary).
The differences between the evidence the journalists gathered and theevidence that investigators gather was explained. The teams had difficultyorganizing data and structuring stories. Many struggled with their leads,
tended to bury the findings of their investigations in the stories and failed
to appreciate the importance of adding color to the stories through succinct
quotes, anecdotes and descriptions. Some journalists tended to editorialize, opine or include unverified information or rumors. Some journalists ac-

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knowledged that these practices put the press in bad light - and now understood why readers tended to think that news reports were based on rumors.
As a result of these workshops, four teams of twenty journalists developed corruption stories, and three of the twelve investigative materials were
produced for radio programs and articles for newspapers.
Members of the team who worked on an entrance examinations bribery
case refused the publication of their stories, for fear that the law would notprotect them - even through their solid evidence would stand up in court.
The journalists could not be forced to take risk, so instead wrote: “Freedom
to Journalists!” This story and other materials were published by the daily newspaper Ardyn Erkh under the banner “Corruption is Everybody’s
Concern.”
Five years later, gic returned to investigative journalism training. Thistime, with the support of a unesco grant and use of its manual entitled“Inquiry-based Story” which the Press Institute translated into Mongolian.
Gic organized a three-day “Train the Trainers” workshop in October 2011that involved a mixed group of seventeen journalism teachers, working
journalists and Globe International trainers. The sessions were ably assisted by Georgia’s ilia University Professor Mr. Oleg Panfilov. Through its
e-mailing list, gic extended invitations to more than a thousand reporters
and teachers and selected applicants based on several criteria, including:commitment and experience in investigative reporting.
The local trainers conducted the two residential workshops for
Ulaanbaatar and provincial journalists. The sessions revealed a number offactors affecting their investigations. The main issues as identified by theparticipants consist of the following:• Mongolian journalists are highly engaged in self-censorship because of outside pressures;• Political censorship is increasing;• Need to develop the media free from economic pressure;• Journalists’ organizations need to be strong and protective of theirmembers;• Journalists need education on the media legal framework;• Journalists should unite in their efforts and reinforce the campaign
for a more favorable legal environment;• Journalists need legal protection and their right to investigate
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Journalists write and expose the facts about corruption, but police
and judiciary take no action on the cases that have been exposed;
andJournalists should cooperate with the civil society organizations topromote greater efficiency.

Local trainers on investigative reporting together with Georgian trainer, Mr. Oleg Panfilov.

Investigative journalism in Mongolia is still underdeveloped and it isencouraging to see the Press Institute seriously taking this matter up with
Deutsche Welle Akademie (dwa) support, and a group of journalists establishing the Investigative Journalism Center (eren). It is hoped that morejournalists and the public would realize the need to lobby for a friendly legal
environment for the media. Gic sees it as vital for journalists to get involved
in its current campaign to strike down anti-media laws, promote press freedom and the right to information.
Gic started election reporting training in 2004, and in 2009, with theassistance of a trainer from the Kiev Office of Internews International, organized a training on how to run an efficient televised debate during thePresidential Elections.
With unesco funding, gic started working with Kazakh journalists
in 2005. The project involved a weekly training for media practitioners in
Kazakh aimag Bayan-Olgii with the participation of bbc and gic experts.

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Subsequently four selected trainees from Bayan-Olgii went for studies at thejournalism department of the Kazakh State University in 2005. In 2006, one
professional cameraman from Olgii TV was dispatched to Radio Television
Malaysia to up-grade his skills Later, gic selected four Kazakh journalists
for internship in the national media outlets that included the Mongolian
National Radio and TV and the biggest daily newspaper Udriin Sonin, togive them opportunities to improve their professional skills. Gic also held
training for members of minority communities as well as for journalistsof Uvs aimag where ethnic minorities such as Durvod, Bayad and Khoton
dominate.
Since 2015, gic has been focused on training the media on social accountability mechanisms and reporting on governance issues.
The results and recommendations of gic studies, surveys and results ofmonitoring provided information on the trainees’ needs and topics of training programs.

Trainees of the community radio workshop interview members of the Kazakh community.

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Training Modules and Methodology
Gic aims to offer journalists efficient and innovative programs and in doing so carefully designs education formats - the first element for successful
training. In 2012-2014, gic organized four regional investigative reporting
trainings for the rural journalists while it offered weekly face-to-face training for Ulaanbaatar journalists. Selected reporters came to the gic office
weekly for legal consultation and to get more information on the topics they
were working on.
Field trips have taken journalists to a wide range of small and mediumsized enterprises - from kindergartens to artisan mines and chicken farms- to gain first-hand experience of issues affecting those industries.
Gic’s instructive method called “Information Points” involves four tofive experts or stakeholders who extensively discuss with journalists the issues in the training program. During the training on reporting issues associated with persons with visual impartiality, journalists had a chance to talkto a blind computer trainer,
massage therapist, musician
and teacher and human rights
activist. At the training on citizens’ participation in making
administrative decisions, gic
invited a government official,a lawyer, a judge and a civil society expert.
Another method occasionally used is the game
“How to Produce TV Talk
Shows” where journalists playdifferent roles including herder, ngo leader, and others.
Indeed, the people represented in the roles are information
sources for journalists producing news and other media
Field visit to Taragt soum of Uvurkhangai aimag
products.
where seabucktorn plants thrive.

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Digital security session with Trainer Marcel Oomens, Free Press Unlimited.

Using “Arts” as an effective educational tool, gic has produced humanrights documentaries, videos and slideshows to demonstrate corruption,with follow-up discussion for learning reinforcement.
The “dialogue training method” was first used in civil society training in 2004 on how to conduct media campaign. Journalists were invited
to attend the discussions of a mixed journalist-civil society activist group.
Participants had a great opportunity to learn from each other and becameaware of the human rights issues that some ngos work on. Rural journalists and members of the local police force participated in domestic violence
training and in 2016, gic organized “Media and Civil Society Dialogue on
Domestic Violence” using civil society expertise and with Austrian government support.
Beyond journalism trainings, gic also runs programs for public officials, lawyers, citizens, and youth groups. To demonstrate and engage thestudents of law schools and secondary schools on issues around corruption,
it developed two modules using images from a twenty-eight anti-corruption
episodic TV series. The TV episodes narrating twelve corruption stories
were produced by private channel ntv, as a public awareness-raising component of a project funded by Asia Foundation. For the secondary school
program, gic has trained five law school students to deliver the school
program.

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Staged reading of the short play “Big Brother,” which is about a female journalist who faced
criminal defamation case because of her article disclosing human trafficking.

Gic has a project on “Theater for Human Rights” and produces readings of short human rights plays. Readers Theater, sometimes called staged
readings, is quite simply the reading out loud of the script of a play for an
audience. It is a “no-frill” production, but a production nonetheless. The
readers are actors. The main difference between Readers Theater and a fullystaged production is that there are no costumes or elaborate sets and lighting. The focus is on the script and acting.
Gic uses this form of theatrical show for advocacy and education purposes because there are less production aspects to deal with, staged reading
allows the presentation of human rights issues closer to the hearts of audience. In 2012, it first developed the scripts for two short plays for use in the
decriminalization of defamation campaign. These plays are based on real
stories of two female journalists who faced criminal defamation cases when
they published their articles disclosing corruption and human trafficking.
Using the videos of the staged readings, gic is now developing a training
module on free expression for judges, police officers and prosecutors.

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H U M A N R I G H T S E D U C AT I O N I N A S I A - PA C I F I CChallenges and Opportunities
According to the Reporters Sans Frontières (rsf), Mongolia has had a partly
free press since 2002 and remains a country with notable problems of press
freedom.7
There are many challenges to the development of free and independent
media in Mongolia. The violations of freedom of expression discussed earlier are in themselves problematic, but even more seriously they are part ofa more critical problem related to the general political and financial dependence of the media. The immense influence political and financial groups
have on the media leaves little room for accurate and independent work.
The media are saturated with so-called “business news” in the form of paid
articles or paid programs. While political and financial influence is common the world over, it is a major cause of concern in Mongolia. Since politicians and corporations are media owners, the journalists themselves dotheir reporting for the companies or the politicians. This situation risks losing whatever credibility is left of the profession and prevents the journalists
from making critical reports on these companies or politicians. Journalists
lose credibility when they cannot report honestly, and readers, listeners andviewers do not know what to believe when there is no distinction between
advertorials and independently-prepared reports.
Some media outlets do not accept “business news,” but they often havea hard time avoiding it since it is such a common practice among journalists.
On the other hand, problems regarding the exercise of the labor rights ofjournalists and their working conditions also affect the quality of journalism.
An Assessment Report of the Media Development of Mongolia states:8
Under the previous political regime, journalists, following
the Soviet model, were obliged to become members of the Trade
Union of Cultural Workers. This monopolistic trade union system collapsed during Mongolia’s shift to democracy. The newConstitution and the 1991 Law on Trade Union Rights gave
Mongolian media professionals the rights to assembly and toform unions and, more generally, to freely protect their labour
rights in line with international standards.
Several associations were created following this liberalization process, including the Mongolian Free and Democratic
Journalists Association (mfdja) [which] was actively engaged
in the introduction of a new democratic media culture and in
the promotion of media freedom, the Mongolian Newspaper
Association, the Mongolian Free Newspaper Association,

Empowering Journalists for Quality Journalism

the Daily Newspapers Association, the Local Newspapers
Association, the Local Radio Association, the Mongolian
Television Federation, the Academy of Television and Radio,
the Association of News Websites, the Mongolian Website
Association and the Association of the Parliamentary Reporters.
However, issues of wages and social insurance as well as working
conditions, safety and security are rarely discussed openly andcollectively.
Given that no surveys had been conducted on journalists’labour rights and awareness of trade unions, the authors of thisreport conducted such a survey. The sample included 40 journalists (20 males and 20 females) from 32 media outlets: ten
television channels, two radio stations, five websites, nine newspapers, five magazines and one news agency (montsame). The
results showed that most media employers establish labour contracts when they hire new journalists. Small media outlets rarely
have contracts. In some small media organizations, journalists
work for a year without a contract. Some progress has reportedly been made regarding the payment of employees’ health insurance. The results from this study show that journalists lackawareness of trade unions and labour rights. The majority (73percent) believe that in order to form a trade union, they needpermission from their employers or representatives from theMongolian Journalists Association. However, the Mongolian
Journalists Association is an ngo that does not play the role of a
trade union; and it is not legally entitled to negotiate salaries andlabour rights with employers. It is also common understanding
among journalists that by establishing a trade union, they fallunder the strict scrutiny of their employers and jeopardize theirjob security. Some journalists (26 percent) thought their editors or directors would not welcome the idea of a trade union.
Many journalists did not know the benefits of a trade union.
Furthermore, the survey suggests that young journalists tend to
avoid talking about trade unions due to a belief that it will harm
their careers. On the other hand, more senior and experienced
journalists expressed an interest in trade unions but were rarely
active in promoting their importance. Out of the 40 participants
surveyed, eight were editors or managers. Almost all of them(seven persons) answered that they would not be opposed to theactive participation in trade unions of the journalists under theirsupervision. In 2011, the Udriinshuudan newspaper formed
and registered its own trade union and started collecting membership fees of 5,000 mnt (approximately US$ 2.5). After lessthan five years, the union’s chairperson resigned and the union
stopped operating.

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In 2016, global media passed through a dark and difficult period withmedia accused of propagating and disseminating “fake news.” It made journalism the target of political propaganda, but this so-called “post-truth era”
presented both challenges and new opportunities for journalism. It affected the public’s right to be well-informed and participate in the decisionmaking process on issues regarding democracy and changes in their lives.
For the last year, media leaders, media policymakers and academia havebeen scratching their brains to find out what went wrong. Some blame theRussians, technology and Internet, while others wave an accusatory finger
at social media giants such as Google, Facebook and Twitter. Others blame
the media itself in those failures because the press is too politicized andbroadcast systems are owned by the wealthy.
Media in Mongolia is totally abused and manipulated by the politicians.
False news, fake news and disinformation are indeed both old and current
problems of Mongolia. Interpreted as libel and insult by the political elite,
debates have sharpened during discussions of the Criminal Law and Law on
Administrative Offense in the Parliament. To the politicians, journalists areat fault for circulating “negative” information about them. Unfortunately,
they seem to forget that many of them have their own media outlets.
However, gic still believes that informed, knowledgeable and specialized journalists are those most able to bring about change. The pen is stillmightier than the sword, and groups of well-trained and educated journalists will always have power in solidarity.
Training Forever!
Endnotes
1 The Mongolian Media Landscape. Sector Analysis, full report available atwww.globeinter.org.mn/images/upld/Media%20secotor209x279.pdf, page 35.
2 The full UNESCO report is available at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/
images/0024/002453/245364e.pdf.
3 UNESCO, Assessment of Media Development of Mongolia, 2016, page 91.
4 Ibid., page 89.
5 Access Info Europe (AIE) and the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD),
Global Right to Information Rating, www.rti-rating.org/indicators-comparation/.
6 Globe International Center, Media Freedom Report, 2015, www.globeinter.
org.mn/images/upld/Hevleliinerhcholoo2016eng.pdf.
7 For reports on Mongolia media, visit Reporters Without Borders, https://rsf.
org/en/mongolia.
8 UNESCO, op. cit., page 95.