The Angie Brooks International Center (ABIC) for Women Empowerment, Peace and Development, through its Women Situation Room (WSR) yesterday, held a day-long refresher for journalists, ahead of the October general elections.
Held Tuesday, September 19, 2023, in Monrovia, the training, which brought together over 30 journalists from both the print and electronic media, was aimed at ensuring journalists remain neutral in the coverage of the elections.
The training, held under the theme: “Responsible Reporting and Reporting with Gender Lance,” also enabled the participating journalists to know their roles and responsibilities during and after elections, which is important to protecting the country’s peace.
Speaking at the start of the training, ABIC Head,Yvette Cherson Wureh, challenged journalists to maintain ethical and professional principles by reporting from the right authority, monitoring and reporting the facts accurately.
She also encouraged the journalists to embark on providing coverage on female political participation, by reporting the ideas women are bringing to the table, rather than discussing history.
According to her, the way in which journalists report on females in politics must now shift from personality to issue-based reporting, noting that women who are in politics have better thoughts to bring to the table than men in politics.
Cllr. Wureh at the same time thanked Liberian journalists for reporting issues of health and education, but admonished them to think outside of the box and begin to focus on the security of women in their respective reportage.
Serving as one of the facilitators, Atty. Facia B. Harris admonished the journalists not to be eager to break news, but should rather focus on the ABC of journalism, stressing that breaking news sometimes leads to breaking the process.
She further emphasized that one of the cardinal roles of reporting stories is to shift the thoughts of the people from negative discourse, and urged the participating journalists not to accept gifts or favor that may influence the output of the news.
Meanwhile, ECOWAS radio coordinator, Eva Flomo, called on journalists not to allow themselves to be used as pawns in a chess game, urging them to provide a level playing field to all candidates to provide their views during elections time.
The publisher of the Women Voices Newspaper, Helen Nah Sammie, at the same time schooled the journalists to focus on reporting gender stories that protect the future of the person who is affected.
She then admonished the participants to consider the effects stories have on the personality of a person, asserting that the sole responsibility of gender reporting is to protect the dignity of a person.
Journalists attending the workshop at the end thanked ABIC and team for organizing the training, which they described as worth it, promising to use the knowledge acquired during and after the October 10 Polls.
