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SRMG Academy Opens Registration for Signature Journalism Boot Camp

SRMG Academy Opens Registration for Signature Journalism Boot Camp
    Asharq A-Awsat
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SRMG Academy Opens Registration for Signature Journalism Boot Camp

SRMG Academy Opens Registration for Signature Journalism Boot Camp

SRMG Academy has announced that the registration for its signature six-month journalism Boot Camp, designed to uncover new media talent and develop emerging journalists in Saudi Arabia and beyond, is now open.

This rigorous program offers 20 participants hands-on classroom training and the opportunity for work experience at SRMG’s most prominent publications. The SRMG Academy Boot Camp is led by world-class Arab and international journalists who have experience in regional and global news organizations. Additionally, the program will feature lectures by a selection of SRMG’s leading journalists.

Launched in December last year, the SRMG Academy is the editorial training arm of the Saudi Research and Media Group, which owns more than 30 leading publications and platforms across the MENA region, including Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Asharq News, and Independent Arabia.

The SRMG Academy Boot Camp is designed to offer participants a gateway to building a career in the industry by equipping them with the skills needed in today’s media world. The course will include fundamental skills, such as writing, editing and beat reporting, in addition to different story formats, such as mobile journalism, podcasting and broadcast journalism.

The first edition of the program is open to residents of Saudi Arabia who are recent university graduates or have a maximum of two years work experience.

The best-performing trainees will receive job offers from SRMG publications. The selection will be based on a combination of talent and the needs of the business.

“I can’t think of a better gateway to begin a career in journalism in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world than taking part in this unique program. Each day the training will offer new challenges to the participants. They will be presented with real-life situations that are faced by journalists and the students will have to make quick decisions and actions about how to address them,” SRMG Academy Managing Director, Alaa Shahine Salha said.

The deadline to submit applications is Feb. 18, with classes starting April 30 in Riyadh.

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Lithuania Bids to Save Baltic Seals as Ice Sheets Recede

Lithuania Bids to Save Baltic Seals as Ice Sheets Recede
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Lithuania Bids to Save Baltic Seals as Ice Sheets Recede

Lithuania Bids to Save Baltic Seals as Ice Sheets Recede

The grey seals slide out of their cages into the Baltic Sea near the Lithuanian coast, swimming off to new lives imperiled by climate change, pollution and shrinking fish stocks.

The seals have been nurtured at a rehabilitation center in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda.

Survival rates for cubs in the wild can be as low as five percent, according to local scientists.

The Baltic Sea, which is shared by the European Union and Russia, rarely freezes over now, depriving seals of sanctuaries to rear their cubs, AFP reported.

"Mothers are forced to breed on land in high concentration with other seals," said Vaida Surviliene, a scientist at Vilnius University.

"They are unable to recognize their cubs and often leave them because of it," she said.

Rearing cubs ashore also leaves them exposed to humans, other wild animals, rowdy males, as well as a higher risk of diseases, according to Arunas Grusas, a biologist at the center.

Grusas began caring for seals in 1987 when he brought the first pup back to his office at the Klaipeda Sea Museum, which now oversees the new rehabilitation center built in 2022.

"We taught them how to feed themselves, got them used to the water –- they had to get comfortable with the sea, which spat them out ashore practically dying," Grusas said.

The very first cubs were placed into makeshift baths set up in an office.

"It was a sensation for us, there were practically no seals left then," Grusas said.
The scientists had to learn how to nurse the cubs back to health.

First, the cubs were treated to liquid formula before moving onto solid food.

At the time in the late 1980s, the seals were close to extinction –- there were just around 4,000 to 5,000 left in the sea from a population of around 100,000 before the Second World War.

"The population began to decrease drastically in the 1950s due to hunting amid competition with fishers," said Surviliene.

The 1960s also saw the use of pesticides in agriculture that were "incredibly toxic for predators", the scientist said.

The seals at the top of the food chain in the Baltic Sea absorbed the pollution, leaving the females infertile and the entire population with a weak immune system, unable to ward off parasites and resist infections.

After a ban on toxic pesticide use, the population survived, with the current estimates putting the number of grey seals in the Baltic Sea at 50,000 to 60,000.

In a response to overfishing, the European Commission also finally banned commercial cod fishing in the eastern Baltic Sea in 2019.

"Over 80 percent of fish resources in the Baltic Sea have been destroyed, the seals have nothing left to eat," said Grusas.

The ban has yet to show a positive result.

"There has been no fishing of eastern Baltic cod for around five years, but it's not yet recovering -- and it's one of the main sources of food" for the seals, said Darius Daunys, a scientist at Klaipeda University.

Recently a growing number of adult seals have been washing up on Lithuanian beaches.

Scientists like Grusas point the finger at near-shore fishing nets, where seals desperate for food end up entangled and ultimately drown.

Out in the Baltic Sea, the nine released seals took their first swim in the wild.

Previously, GPS trackers showed they favored a route north toward the Swedish Gotland island in the middle of the Baltic Sea, where fish are more plentiful.

Others, however, needed a gentle push from the biologists.

In previous years, the released seals would even follow the boat back to shore, scared to venture off alone.

Eventually they all find their way in the wild.

Grusas is now preparing to retire after dedicating his life to saving animals.

He will leave at a time when the grey Baltic seal population has stabilized, but remains highly vulnerable.

"I've spent my whole life with seals," he said. "I'm tired of the tension –- you just don't know what can happen to them."