Journalists trained on agriculture and economic growth issues
BIRATNAGAR: With an aim to encourage media outlets to prioritize agricultural news and to discuss the role of media in agriculture and economic growth, a three day-long media capacity building workshop has been successfully concluded on January 25 in Biratnagar of Province-1. The workshop, which was organized jointly by Media Action Nepal (MAN) and Heifer International Nepal, saw the presence of 32 journalists, of which 10 were women, from the districts of Sunsari, Morang, Jhapa, Sindhuli, Bara, Sarlahi, Dhanusha, Rautahat and Mahottari.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the workshop MAN Chairperson Laxman Datt Pant, said, “This is the third round of media training and was organized to equip journalists with advanced knowledge on economic growth and agricultural potentials”. ‘I am happy to see participating journalists very much interactive throughout sessions in knowing sustainable livelihood, policy and legal frameworks, story angle, editorial role and ethics of media’, he added.
Highlighting the program interventions in the cluster, Dipesh Pokharel, Coordinator of the Itahari Cluster of Heifer International Nepal said, “Heifer is dedicated to uplifting the status of smallholder farmers and takes this workshop as an opportunity to collaborate with media for disseminating information in farmer’s welfare thereby contributing to national development.”
The major sessions of agricultural communication, policy and strategies, role of media, media ethics, press release and press conference were facilitated by MAN Chairperson Laxman Datt Pant. Likewise, Chandra Shekhar Karki, Senior Photojournalist and MAN board member facilitated a session on “Disseminating Agriculture Information/News through photos”. Karki also supervised the photo stories prepared by the participants. Abijal Bista, Mountain Television’s Bureau Chief shared his experience on how journalists can contribute to development initiatives through writing, whereas Regeena Regmi, Associate Communication Officer of Heifer International Nepal highlighted Heifer’s global presence focusing the historical and current activities in Nepal.
The participating journalists were provided with both theoretical frameworks of agricultural journalism and practical opportunities during the training. They engaged in an interactive group activity writing structured agricultural news. They prepared news and photo stories from an observation visit of a Community Group in Sundar Haraicha-7, Morang. A real press conference was organized to translate workshop learnings into practice where Uma Shankar Yadav of Heifer International Nepal responded to the queries raised by journalists.