The Sierra Leone Association of Journalist (SLAJ) with funds from the Canada Funds for Local Initiative (CFLI) based out of the High Commission of Canada in Ghana has on 27 November 2017, commenced its first set of trainings for journalists on political reporting.
The training brought together about 25 journalists from both print and electronic media, at the Harry Yansaneh Hall on Campbell Street in Freetown to learn how to promote democratic and political processes ahead of the 7 March 2018 general elections.
This first part of the training will end tomorrow 29 November 2017. Contents to be covered during this three day training session includes: the state of the media; media and democracy; media ethics and responsibilities; the role of the media in elections; hate media and hate speech; how to interview politicians; media code of conduct-IMC code of practice; designing elections coverage among others.
The President of SLAJ, Kevin Lewis, said the role of the media was crucial at this time. Referencing the theme for this year’s SLAJ annual general meeting, the SLAJ President said they have sourced funds from the Canadian government so they would start training journalists to focus on issues that were germane to the people.
Lewis said, “We journalists, our duties should be to people not to politicians. We must make sure we ask questions that the people want to ask.” He added, “Today, we start a series of training on political reporting to ensure that the media plays it role in a non-partisan way”. He said he was hoping that with the training they will be able to move from a bad trajectory to a more positive delivery of the media’s work.
Stephen Douglas, one of the facilitators said they were happy to support the innovative SLAJ initiative describing the association as a credible organisation. The training was important because it reinforces some key elements and fundamentals. “What we want to do is to look at election reporting differently. The more training we do – the more constantly we are reminded on how to do things differently. We reinforce what we are doing well and this session we are going to focus on serve a different perspective.” He said after the training they will continue to monitor the reporting of journalists on the electoral process. The second part of the training will be on going support and monitoring.
ES/27/11/17
By Edna Smalle
Tuesday November 28, 2017.
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