Egypt: Encourage journalists to cover reproductive health

To raise public awareness of reproductive health (RH) issues, the Population Council’s Frontiers project and the Futures Group’s Policy project jointly organized four press briefings and provided background materials to key journalists from Arabic newspapers and magazines. From May 1999 to June 2000, project staff worked closely with 20 Egyptian journalists, including editors of women’s pages and senior editors. The press briefings covered youth, marriage patterns, contraceptive technology, and menopause. The press kit prepared for each briefing contained fact sheets, reference materials, a contact list of key experts, and an evaluation sheet. To assess RH reporting and track coverage resulting from the intervention, project staff monitored eight major Arabic newspapers and nine magazines daily. All articles on RH were coded according to their topic, length, and use of research findings. As noted in this brief, after Egyptian print journalists attended briefings on RH issues, their reporting of these issues improved. Health agencies can improve coverage of RH issues by providing a regular flow of accurate information to a broad range of journalists.