Journalists from North Africa and the Middle East met in Casablanca to discuss media reform as 'winds of change' sweep the Arab world.

Organized by the International Federation of Journalists with support from Germany's Friedrich Ebert foundation, the meeting was attended by journalists' representatives from Algeria, Bahrain, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, Kuwait, Iraq, Libya, Palestine, Lebanon, Oman, Somalia, Mauritania, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

IFJ President Jim Boumelha told the delegates that the meeting - entitled 'Winds of Change: setting the agenda for media reforms' - was taking place at 'an extraordinary time'. "A year ago, not one of us would have predicted that the iron fists of Ben Ali or Mubarak would have crumbled as they have," he said.

Topics on the first day included the role in precipitating change of international satellite channels such as Al Jazeera, and of bloggers and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Mr Boumelha said many state media outlets had lost credibility by thei anti-revolution bias and attempts to portray a 'parallel reality'. Now was the time for Arab journalists to challenge their governments to permit media freedom and introduce structures with the values of public service broadcasting.