HETAUDA, SEPTEMBER 28
Media Action Nepal (MAN), a Member and Co-Chair of the Media Freedom Coalition-Consultative Network (MFC-CN) is offering series of intensive training and mentorship sessions on fair media coverage of elections to 175 journalists covering 20 districts of all seven provinces of Nepal including fellowships to 14 selected reporters.
To this end, the first media sensitization workshop was organized in Hetauda of Bagmati Province. On Wednesday 25 participants from Hetauda and Chitwan districts. Out of which 12 participants were girls/women. The participants represented eight newspapers, five television channels, six online news portals and six radio stations.
Supported by the Canada Fund for Local Initiative (CFLI), the training, mentorship and fellowship seek to equip journalists on fair media coverage, reporting elections, countering disinformation and hate speech, and promoting inclusive and diverse media content. The training workshop has three sessions and the topics of discussion cover professional standards and code of conduct for journalists, media's approach to human rights and approaches to countering hate speech and promoting inclusive media content.
The training sessions were facilitated by Laxman Datt Pant, Global Journalism Trainer and Chairperson of Media Action Nepal and the Co-Chair of MFC-CN, Shree Adhikari, Human Rights Expert and Priyanka Jha, Vice-Chairperson of Media Action Nepal.
Pant interacted with the participants focusing on standards for fair media coverage of elections, elections and media professionalism, adherence to ethics and code of conduct and understanding diversity and media's role in elections. He also focused on election's code of conduct for journalists published by the Election Commission Nepal (ECN) that is being implemented from 28th September, 2022 until the federal and provincial elections scheduled for November 20, 2022.
Adhikari focused on areas of human rights and election-provision and standards, constitution of Nepal, stages of reporting in election, media's approach to human rights reporting. He discussed the laws related to election and the laws that need to be considered while reporting elections. His discussion also included the importance of fair media coverage during three phases of election i.e before election, during election and after election. Jha shared with the participants about understanding elections related misinformation/disinformation and hate speech, issues for media advocacy and promoting inclusive media content. She focused on the importance of the role and responsibilities of journalists and media during the election.
Meanwhile, Srijana Nepal, a participant from Radio Thaha Sanchar in Makawanpur shared, "As the training was right before the election, it was helpful to us to learn about the roles the media should play before, during and after election." Similarly, Shanta Adhikari, a journalist working with Chitwan Patra commented, "Receiving the training before the election provided us an understanding on subjects that need to be focused during election like the political parties and candidates, the issues and the voting process."
Ganesh Prasad Ghimire, Secretary of Media Action Nepal highlighted the objectives of the workshop, while Laxman Datt Pant, Chairperson of Media Action Nepal introduced the participants with the work of Media Action Nepal and expressed his appreciation to CFLI for supporting the election reporting training workshops and mentorship program. The next media workshop is taking place on September 29 in Janakpur for 25 journalists of Dhanusha, Siraha, Sarlahi and Mahottari districts of Madhesh province.
