The Association of Media Development In South Sudan (AMDISS) and its Media Development Institute (MDI) on Tuesday rolled out a three-day tailor-made media training workshop in Kuajok, the capital of Warrap State.
The training aims to equip journalists with skills to do their work professionally as the country is slated to hold elections at the end of the year.
The workshop brought together 30 journalists from Don Bosco Radio in Tonj South County, KongKoc Radio in Tonj North County, Door FM of Tonj East County, Mayardit FM in Twic County, the government-owned Kuajok Radio, and Radio Miraya.
The training focused on basic journalism skills, gender-based violence (GBV) reporting, Conflict-sensitive reporting, Media Laws, Ethics, and Code of Conduct, and trauma healing.
John Lal Chol, the director general in the state ministry of information, who spoke at the closing of the training, said he anticipates that the knowledge obtained will improve the skills of the journalists and appreciated the facilitators for selecting relevant topics.
“I see that everyone is happy with the outcome of the workshop. I appreciate these two facilitators for explaining to the young journalists clearly what is required of them when doing their work,” he said. “I appeal for more pieces of training to be given to journalists in Warrap State because they often miss out on pieces of training conducted in Juba.”
Lal urged participants to be messengers of peace and share the knowledge they gained with their colleagues who missed the training. He said cooperation between journalists and government institutions can help end tribalism and hatred and that media houses should have programs to unite communities.
For his part, Madhieu William, the lead facilitator at the workshop, encouraged the participants to research and equip themselves with knowledge and skills that will contribute positively to the profession.
“Journalism is a very demanding profession that requires one to read and research any topic of discussion before coverage,” he guided. “It is a learning profession and you learn from your sources and colleagues so make good use of smartphones and learn new things from the internet every day.”
Some of the workshop participants said they found the training very beneficial and learned about topics they were unfamiliar with.
“I am a journalist working at Don Bosco Radio and this workshop has been beneficial to me because I learned about media laws, journalistic ethics and the code of conduct, and conflict-sensitive reporting among other things,” Martha Ajak Bol said, adding: “I will apply the knowledge I have learned in my work at our radio station. More importantly, I did not know how to report about gender-based violence cases.”
Another journalist, Angelo Muorater from Tonj North County said he learned about the different roles of reporters and editors.
“I learned a lot from the AMDISS training and I would like to request the facilitators to provide us with handouts,” he stated.