As part of its preparedness to providing credible and high-quality elections coverage, the Africa Young Voices (AYV) Media Empire has concluded two-day intensive training for its journalists, fellows and stringers across the country.
Each electioneering year, AYV recruits hundreds of stringers and fellows across the country to cover and report on electoral processes. These stringers and fellows are trained, prepared and properly equipped to give credible, balanced and independent reporting on happenings before, during and after the elections.
This year’s training was focused on elections reporting which should be fair, adequate and equitable. As is the mantra of AYV, news content should be factual, credible and at all times balance.
AYV’s Director of Communications/Editor -In-Chief, Samuel Wise Bangura said: “AYV Media Empire is Sierra Leone’s leading digital media house that created and continues to create an enviable platform for students, volunteers and other individuals to gain firsthand the required experience needed for practical journalism and multimedia communication.”
He said the training will help capacity the young stringers and reporters to do good coverage and reporting when sent to the field, especially to political parties and/or polling centers to do coverage.
According to him, the facilitators are well equipped and grounded on electoral and elections reporting, media law and elections conduct, adding that AYV focuses on credible, factual and balanced coverage.
He concluded that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Africa Young Voices Media Empire, Amb. Anthony Navo Jr., has always been capacitating young people and that he is satisfied with the compliance of the stringers and reporters’ turnout for the training.
AYV’s Director of News and Current Affairs, Amadu Lamrana Bah encouraged journalists and stringers to be attentive to topics taught as they will soon encounter these realities on ground.
He said journalists are one of the key election stakeholders which have an important role to play in facilitating political discourse, fostering transparency and information-sharing, and serving as an effective forum for public debate, all of which strengthens the democratic process.
With just 85 days to the general elections in June, Lamrana went on, it is imperative journalist and stringers are equipped and up to the task ahead.
Facilitator, Joshua Nicol emphasised that young journalists should focus on accuracy rather than sentiment.
He also spoke on intrusion of modern technology and how to do television and radio programs, while calling on journalist to dive into the law when covering and reporting elections.
Facilitator, Prof. Jimmy Kandeh spoke on democratisation and elections, which according to him, are divided bureaucratic channel, patronage network, formal rules, informal rules, civic public, primordial publics, capitalist model production, pre-capitalist model production and sub- capitalist model production.
Dr. Isaac Massaquoi was another facilitator at the training. He focused on elections reporting which according to him will entails fair, adequate, equitable, credible and balanced.
He also spoke on critical issues which politicians would want to deceived the public and as a journalist how to dig deep in getting the views of citizens on the same issue.