Namlah, Deputy Minister of Culture and Information, confirmed on Thursday the ministry has not received any complaints regarding the media coverage of the Inter-faith dialogue conference. Al-Namlah denied reports that said all media coverage was exclusive to Saudi government media outlets. “It is not true at all. Saudi Television aired the opening ceremony live and allowed other satellite channels to grab the coverage from Saudi TV's signals and even without the official logos,” Al-Namlah told the Saudi Gazette. He added that the Ministry of Culture and Information has invited seven separate television stations. In a short interview with the Saudi Gazette, Al-Namlah said that Ministry of Culture and Information pays more attention to the foreign information department. “We have invited many journalists and TV anchors from different parts of the world both Muslim and non-Muslim countries.” He added that there were no certain regulations for organizations seeking the conference coverage except that a Muslim delegate must be sent. “As you see we have journalists from The Guardian and The Independent as well as some other British, French, and German media,” Al-Namalh said. He noted that the Indonesian and Malaysian delegations were the largest among the guests of the ministry. Al-Namlah pointed out that his ministry had made great efforts in training journalists. “So far, about 14 Yemeni journalists have been under training in Saudi Arabia at Prince Ahmed Bin Salman Center and in the next four days we expect another path from Saba Press Agency of Yemen,” Al-Namlah added. Al-Namlah said that Saudi journalists need more training to be more professional in their career. “Every month we have a media delegation travel to a new country. Our last delegation was in Sweden few months ago and some journalists visited Turkey and China too,” he said. Al-Namalh advised Saudi journalists to be more specialized in their journalism career. “It is unfortunate that there are no specialized journalists in Saudi Arabia. It is becoming increasingly hard to find a political reporter or a crime reporter, for instance. I think their media organizations play a major role toward their journalists professionalism,” Al-Namlah said. __
