Sunday Times 2
Multimedia/Blog training for Jaffna University students
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The workshop in progress
Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF), in partnership with Helvetas, conducted a two-day practical workshop on ‘Multimedia article/Blog writing’ for 47 Media students of Jaffna University on Jan 22-23.
The programme was inaugurated by Jaffna University Dean Faculty of Arts, Prof K Suthakar, Head of Department – Media Studies, Dr S Raguram, and SDJF Programme Director, Azad Mustaffa. Helvetas Programme Manager Chandula Kumbukage, joined the session virtually from Colombo.
The programme was designed to accommodate national and international experts on the specific topic.
On day 1, participants were taken through the process of blog writing and allowed to work in groups. Each group was asked to select the most important issue they wanted to flag through their upcoming blog and accordingly, the trainer guided them to come up with their thoughts and story pitch. Mr Ajith Prekum, a leading blogger, shared his experience and tips to reach a wider audience.
Students were sensitised to fact checking, source verification and journalism ethics when writing a multimedia article/blog.
On day 2, each group was given the opportunity to pitch their story to the trainer and re- shape the story angle. Each group was provided resources and one-to-one coaching to write their own blog. Two international trainers from KIIT University India, Dr Bindu Das and Dr Mukherjee joined via zoom and shared their experience on ‘Capturing community issues through creative writing’.
The overall training programme was led by Dr M C Rasmin, Media trainer and consultant for InSPIRE.
All groups published their stories (blog posts). Rohiny Arunthavaselvam, third year student from the Department of Media Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Jaffna said, “After this training, I know the technical aspects of writing a blog and doing multimedia articles. Now I’m more attuned to doing research on social issues in my community. I can use this knowledge to write blogs in the future about social issues that have an impact on my community.”
The participants will produce their own multimedia article for the inter-university competition with the coaching and mentorship from SDJF on freedom of expression, digital citizenship, information rights and women in new media.
The activity is part of the Incubator Spaces for Promoting Information Rights and Freedom of Expression (InSPIRE) project funded by the European Union and implemented by Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum and Helvetas.