Warrap State Information Minister William Wol Mayom has urged members of the Union of Journalists of South Sudan (UJOSS) to take advantage of every training opportunity to improve their skills and knowledge.
Mayom expressed the sentiments on Wednesday during a one-day workshop organized by UJOSS, with financial support from the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), in Kuajok, the capital of Warrap State.
The training, which brought 25 participants from the counties, aimed at training the journalists on the use of the digital means to enhance information dissemination.
Mayom appreciated UJOSS and NPA for initiating the workshop, which he said, helped the journalists to ease their work in the digital world.
“It is our wish and responsibility as Ministry of Information to have qualified human resources like you, and due to the gap that we have in this economic hardship, we are unable to provide trainings like this. However, with support from our partners and UJOSS, we have been able to host over four trainings in Warrap State,” he stated.
“I urge you journalists to obtain knowledge because training opportunities are rare. Be focused, participate fully and take something beneficial away,” he said.
Lead facilitator Anthony Yol urged the journalists to improve their knowledge and make use of mobile journalism to enhance the information services to the people of Warrap State.
“Mobile or civic journalism is the modern way of reporting and 90% of journalists globally resort to it. That is why we organized this training to bring you on board,” he said.
One of journalists in the training, Adut William Akeen, said she benefitted and that she would do her job more effectively.
“I benefitted from building civic knowledge. Mobile journalism is amazing when reporting in a democratic society. I learnt fact-checking, investigative journalism techniques, ethics in journalism, responsibility, truth telling and fairness,” she said.
“This is a very important training. I will utilize what I gained at my work place because what is unique is the knowledge about video photographing. It is very essential and I am a news broadcaster. I gained a lot of skills there,” Akol Nicolas Madut said.
Deng Angok said: “I have learnt about civic journalism, online media and many topics relating to journalistic skills. These will help me a lot and I am happy to have acquired the knowledge and skills to do my work better in the radio station.”