An Elogious Balance Sheet of a Multi-pronged Media Action:

Our media campaigns was, in a well deserved way, described as a “media blitz”: Events organized by Sirius during year 2009 were indeed shown on National TV news five times during the year (and some 15 times if counting rebroadcasting), some 50 times on National radio channels and an estimated 600 times in the various newspapers (news, interviews, communiqués…), while the official Algeria Press Agency (APS) run bulletins from our communiqués close to 10 times. Millions of people in Algeria have heard, some repeatedly, about the Astronomy events during the year, thanks to this reaching out actions.

In Spite of a Presidential Campaign...

As an example of a success we are quite proud of is the media campaign held during the “100 Hours of Astronomy” which felt during the presidential campaign here in Algeria and for which there were many restrictions on the access to the media for everything which wasn’t related to the Presidential campaign. Yet, we succeeded in reaching out to the public... and we did won the first prize in the most coveted category of the “Most publicised 100 Hour of Astronomy registered event”.

Putting the “Heavy Media” to Heavy Use
The high credibility Sirius is credited with, enabled it to access with great profit the National TV at various stages during the unfolding of the of IYA2009 events. Indeed Sirius has become in Algeria and even beyond, the Voice of science & wisdom as far as the yearly controversy surrounding the date of the starting of the month of fasting (Ramadhan). And thanks to its Ramadhan bulletin where the astronomical information on crescent visibility is clearly delineated each year for both Algeria and the Muslim world, credible and scientifically accurate information is available to the general public. These information are widely circulated in the various media and even in the official ones, while only few years ago it was unthinkable that a NGO would go in the public media with an announcement on a subject which is taken to be a sensitive one and the reserved area for the Ministry of Religious Affairs. We may modestly state that Sirius media action in that respect has shaped the way the public perceive the issue of the beginning and ending the fasting month, and official authorities have adapted themselves to this new situation. In practice, their Fatwa on the beginning of the Ramadhan's month is more elaborate and mention explicitly the astronomical data as a source of it.

This credibility of Sirius has in fact touched every aspect of astronomy and we are even solicited on subject which goes beyond astronomy, our domain of expertise. On these subjects we respectfully declined to answer.. Building on this assets, it is not too much of a surprise that we were able to communicate very well with the various media during the IYA-2009.
See below some national news coverage we got during 2009 on Algerian TV and abroad. We may add that Algeria has two National TV channels, the ENTV (In Arabic) and Canal Algerie (Mostly in French) and no private TV.

... and the "Lighter" Ones too!

Our action toward the radios was also significant, and although it was not as prestigious as the “heavy media” like TV broadcasting, it enables us to routinely and on short notice inform millions of people of breaking astronomical news thanks to the level of credibility Sirius has achieved. In fact, our Association has become throughout the years the almost exclusive reference for those media on everything concerning Astronomy. As stated earlier, national newspapers picked up our various communiqués, news, interviews, an estimated 600 times during this year (Yes, you read it correctly, no extra zero!). Most of the "hits" as it were came from major operations like the "100 Hours of Astronomy", the "Galilean Nights", the crescent visibility announce for each of the start and the end of Ramadhan... We are in particularly proud that the Algerian official news agency, the Algerie Press Service (APS), has written during 2009 some ten or so stories based on our communiqués!

Never before perhaps did the media was so intensively used for promoting Astronomy and the IYA 2009 goals.