Date: August 10 — 12, 2004
Location: Sukkur

A three-day Journalism Training Workshop was organized by Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) in collaboration with The Asia Foundation (TAF) at Interpak Inn, Sukkur from August 10 — 12, 2004. The theme of the workshop was Media and Democratic Governance with special focus on Peace.

This was the fifth PPF-TAF workshop aimed at promoting understanding of the media persons, including female freelance writers, on selected themes and improving their writing skills working for various national and regional newspapers, radio and television stations. The participants consisted of 20 participants, mostly working journalists and freelance writers, from Panoo Aqil, Sukkur, Rohri, Larkana, Hyderabad, Thatta, Badin, Jacobabad and Karachi.

The workshop was organized to enable local journalists focus on the problems of their areas, especially lack of democratic stability, understanding and experience rural life, interact with the people and discuss their problems.

The workshop emphasized on the role of media as an integral part of a family, civil society, market and state because decision-making and implementation of decisions depend upon the condition and performance of these four institutions.

The trainers of the workshop were Ms. Kamyla Marvi Tapal, consultant, and Mr. Fazal Qureshi, Chairperson PPF.

The key objectives of the workshop were:

1. To promote conceptual understanding of governance, democratic governance and peace among district journalists.

2. To enable identification of national and international peace issues for feature writing.

3. To train district journalists in the basic journalistic skill of feature writing.

The workshop used many interactive tools, including group discussions, analytical techniques and drawing caricature sketches on role of media in promotion of peace.

On day-one of the workshop, Mr. Fazal Qureshi, Chairperson PPF, introduced the topic. He gave an overview of the previous TAF and PPF workshops. He mentioned the aims and objectives of PPF.

Ms. Kamyla Marvi discussed the procedure of the workshop. After introduction of the participants, the rules of the workshop were decided.

Kamyla Marvi defined the terms and concepts of state, civil society, market, and family.

Participants were asked to discuss the role and links between these important elements. Participants were divided among four groups to discuss the eras of 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000 with respect to the government at that time. Participants presented their discussion.

In the next session Ms. Kamyla discussed the role of media. Participants were asked to analyze the role of media. Mr. Fazal Qureshi defined the difference between article writing and news writing. He then discussed and defined the difference between journalistic and other writings.

In the area of skills development, participants were trained in news writing and feature writing through instructive and interactive sessions.

Mr. Qureshi elaborated the steps involved in making ‘intro’ of a news story. He informed the participants that the intro or lead of a news story should be dramatic containing five Ws and one H. The news stories written by participants were also discussed.

The participants were asked to point out the qualities of a good journalist. The following were selected as the qualities of a good journalist:

– Objectivity
– Intellectualism
– Positive thinking
– Progressive / constructive thinking
– Honesty
– Truth
– Courage
– Unbiased approach

The second-day of the workshop began with the review of the previous day of the workshop.

Ms. Kamyla asked participants
to define ‘peace’ and mentioned the factors that disturb peace. She also asked them to discuss factors that arise in a society due to absence of peace.

Participants expressed their view that lack of peace in a country creates feeling of insecurity among its citizens resulting in lack of coordination / communication and affecting business and trade.

For conceptual clarity on peace, the participants were made to analyze the causes, effects and proposals in relations to peace situation in Pakistan, in the neighbourhood and in the world at large.

After presentations of the group discussion by the participants, facilitators advised them to use the same procedure in feature and article writing. Participants were asked to discuss how peace could be maintained in components of democratic governance state, civil society, market and family.

The views of the participants that came forward were:

Peace in STATE can be maintained by…

– Eliminating corruption
– Access to justice
– Establishing democratic institutions
– Defining rules and regulations
– Implementing laws
– Equal distribution of resources
– Equal rights for women
– Designing better economic policies
– Access to basic rights
– Democratic leadership
– Democracy in political parties

Peace in FAMILY through…

– Unity
– Trust and respect each other
– Confidentiality
– Sensitivity to other’s pains and sufferings
– Neglecting other’s mistakes
– Providing better brought up
– Balancing between relationships
– Guiding others
– Loving environment
– Without exploiting others
– Tolerance
– No gender equality
– Developing civic sense

Peace in MARKET can be ensured by…

– Balancing prices
– Ensuring quality of products
– Establishing institutions for accountability
– Encouraging healthy competition
– Eradicating black marketing
– Ensuring labourers their proper rights
– Ending forced labour
– Providing honest leadership to labourers
– Promoting welfare and development

Peace in CIVIL SOCIETY can be maintained if there is / are…

– Better educational institutions
– Accountability
– Dialogue among the masses
– Awareness among the masses
– Public committees
– Discouraging criminals and criminal attitudes
– Identifying the problem objectively
– Drafting bills for law
– Choosing proper leadership
– Cultural values and respects

Participants were asked to write article on a selected topic and were asked to discuss it with other participants. Mr. Fazal Qureshi explained the criteria for choosing a subject for article writing. He pointed out six steps involved in procedure writing an article.

Participants were asked to select three topics for writing articles. They were then asked to select one topic, out of the three, with more affect and importance.

Participants were asked to write central ideas for features and were also informed about the sources of information for writing articles.

From the topics, ‘increasing rate of crimes due to cable system’ was selected for brainstorming and discussing the outline. Participants were asked to brainstorm their topics and design and outline for their features / articles.

The third and the last day of the workshop began with a review of the previous day. Participants expressed their views about the workshop. Mr. Fazal Qureshi explained the steps and parts of an article. He also explained the kinds of journalistic writing. The participants were asked to review features / articles in the light of the directions given by the facilitators of the workshop.

The participants were awarded certificates.