Journalists encouraged to be voice for people

The United Nations in Papua New Guinea values the media and journalists as key influencers and vital catalysts to inform people, an official says.
UN resident coordinator in Papua New Guinea Roy Trivedy, speaking to 20 local journalists during a recent week-long workshop, said that the media’s role had become more important than ever before in reporting on issues people faced.
“To achieve the sustainable development goals which aim at leaving no one behind, more efforts are required to identify people’s needs, enable them to use their voices and give people an equal opportunity to access information and services,” Trivedy said.
The tailored training was grounded in the country’s context and delivered by Ian Mannix and Catherine Graue under the Media Development Initiative funded by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Localised contents of the training provided the journalists not only the general skills of reporting but also knowledge about pressing issues in the country like human rights, gender, health, agriculture, environment conservation, data and the sustainable development goals.
Theckla Gunga a news journalist from EMTV said: “It was just for five days but I have learnt so much from data journalism to mobile journalism. What I want to do next is to make the stories matter to the people affected by decisions our government makes.”
The journalists were selected from NBC TV/Radio, EMTV, PNGTV, PNGFM, FM100, The National, Post Courier and Wantok Niuspepa.
The training consisted of a series of practical sessions on research, interviewing, data mining, writing, and the application of ethics and values of journalism.
Further support was provided by the US State Department for three reporters from NBC’s provincial stations in Alotau, Lae and Madang to participate in the training.