CAIRO — Will a one-week training enable Egypt’s imams to sound more reassuring, more emphatic and appear more camera-friendly on television? The Ministry of Religious Endowments certainly hopes so.

The media trainings were launched three months ago by Maspero, the Radio and Television Union, in cooperation with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and a number of media colleges and institutes; four training sessions have been held so far, the last one on Oct. 8-15. They target the imams of the Ministry of Religious Endowments and aim at developing their public speaking and persuasion skills. Courses include teaching the imams how to speak in talk shows, telephone interviews and TV debates. It also teaches them body language for interviews on TV as well as writing sound bites for various types of televised interviews. 

An instructor at the Radio and Television Institute where the trainings are held told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the course aims to develop the media skills of the imams so that they can “dominate the religious discourse,” counter extremist views expressed by the Salafists and efficiently debunk false interpretations on religion in TV programs.

The source said that in the past radio and TV programs often have become a platform where self-declared clerics or extremists issued fatwas  - religious edicts - that have nothing to do with the Islamic teaching, which sometimes led to dangerous events on the ground.