As part of the USAID Media Activity implemented by Internews and FeJAL, 12 female journalists departed Liberia to observe and report on the upcoming Sierra Leonean elections.
The Activity is part of the specialized Media Engagement Training to increase women in media professional development skills, interview techniques, and overall confidence of women newsroom leaders.
The weeklong cross border activity offers a potential learning opportunity for participating female journalists to visit women-led newsrooms in neighboring Sierra Leone to share from their models, successes, and challenges.
The Newsroom Leaders’ Fellowship Activity for senior and mid-level female journalists was designed to increase their leadership and editorial skills while building their confidence and overall ability to take on future editorial and decision-making roles in their newsrooms.
Internews’ senior journalism advisor Torwon Sulonteh Brown expressed Internews’ sentiment to the fellows and encouraged them to take advantage of the opportunity to send stories to the different newsrooms. She said the fact that the journalists are serving as representation of the entire Liberian media, this is an opportunity they did not see coming anytime soon hence they should conduct themselves accordingly.
Madam Browne reminded them about the objectives of the fellowship they are enrolled in, noting the more women leaders we have in newsrooms, the better the country will be. She acknowledged that there will be diversity of voices with equal opportunity to be heard.
“This is a great opportunity for you people to show case the journalism in you and I hope you remember the goals of this fellowship. I urge you to do the best you can so that together we meet the objectives of this activity which is aimed at enhancing your professional careers so that you make impact in your different newsrooms,” Madam Brown expressed.
FeJAL’s president, Siatta Scott Johnson thanked the United States government through the USAID Media Activity for such experience sharing and lessons learning opportunity for women journalists in Liberia.
She than assured FeJAL’s fullest collaboration to ensuring an impactful cross border engagement and exchanges with the Sierra Leonean media during these crucial moments of their democratic elections.
She emphasized that, being the first of its kind in Liberia, the fellows have a greater responsibility to work harder to lift the banner of the Liberian media in a more professional dimension while increasing women reporters voices on international platforms, and cross country reporting.
“This will be our first cross border or out of country election observing opportunity as an institution, so, to us that are on this trip, let’s make the most out of it. Let’s do all the networking we can do; lets interact more with our colleagues on that side, you can never tell what would come out of this trip,” she stated.
For her part, Radio Gbarnga’s senior reporter Joycelyn Togba applauded Internews for believing in FeJAL to implement this activity.
She said the activity gives journalists like her the opportunity to expand her work in a foreign newsroom and adds value to the work she does as a journalist pointing out, “for me I have never left Liberia therefore this does not only mean a lot to me professionally but personally.”
“I promise to do the best I can to represent my newsroom and also share the knowledge and experiences with my fellow journalists in Bong County,” she expressed.
FeJAL’s Media Trainer Vivian Cooke welcomed the fellows on board for the road trip to Freetown and encouraged them to make use of the opportunity to learn new strategies to enhance their productivity and make their stay in Sierra Leone meaningful.
Cooke cautioned participants to take advantage of the ethics of elections reporting and add on to their past experiences from elections coverage and reporting in Liberia while learning new lessons from their Sierra Leonean counterparts.
The Fellowship Activity began early 2023 with a three-day workshop in Monrovia to build editorial and leadership skills among participants followed by a quarterly group mentoring through calls that is being held remotely via Zoom.
That goggle meeting discusses challenges and successes they have face in their newsrooms and listen to notable guest experts on specific topics related to ‘Leadership in the Newsroom.’
The Media Activity was designed to enhance the human and institutional capacity of the media while advocating for and maintaining current media freedoms to reliably carry out responsible journalism, drive reforms, and increase revenue, to expand Liberians’ engagement with government, and increase accountability.
The project is being implemented through four intertwined objectives: increase capacity of the media to produce reliable, relevant, and accurate information; enhance the Media’s ability to serve as a conduit for information between citizens and the government; improve organizational and financial sustainability of community radio stations; and strengthen an enabling environment for freer media.
