The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) announces a new online course for Arabic-speaking journalists: 'How to Create a News Web Site.'

Veteran journalist Daoud Kuttab will lead the six-week program, which will gather together Arab journalists from across the region in a virtual classroom.

The course, conducted in Arabic, begins April 1. It is designed to provide practical, hands-on lessons on a variety of topics related to news Web site development, strategy and management. Journalists must apply by March 3.

'The Internet has become vital in disseminating news in the Middle East,' said ICFJ President Joyce Barnathan. 'This course, the first of many to come, was created after journalists in the region expressed interest in training in the best practices of digital journalism.'

The instructor, Kuttab, is widely recognized as a leader in online news reporting in the Arab world. He helped establish the Arabic Media Internet Network in 1995 and founded AmmanNet radio, the region's first Internet radio site, in 2000. He is a regular columnist for The Jordan Times, The Jerusalem Post and Lebanon's Daily Star and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other leading publications. He has also co-produced a number of award-winning documentaries and children's television programs.

'This is an opportunity for enterprising Arab journalists to learn the tools to create and publish quality, original information from and for their communities without any external filters or pressures,' said Kuttab, who is presently Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.

The course is sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy. In the coming year, ICFJ will add courses on key important in Arabic as well as in Persian.