Journalists to be trained for blogging | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Journalists to be trained for blogging

Pakistan Press Foundation

PESHAWAR: To use modern techniques of disseminating information and get a feedback from general readers and authorities concerned, a training workshop for working journalists and bloggers held in Peshawar.

The training workshop was arranged by the Individual-land Pakistan, a non-governmental organization (NGO) in collaboration with another organisation National Endowment for Democracy (NED) on the concept of “social media” here at the Peshawar Press Club. The media persons were trained how to use blog and twitter IDs along with other sources of dissemination of information.

“Social media is a growing phenomenon around the glob and has been surfaced not only as a vital source of non-selective information for citizens but as an important tool to strengthen democracy as well,” trainer said. He said that the session was a follow-up workshop conducted here in Peshawar in June this year. In the previous workshop, focused was made on the basics of social media and its role in journalism nationally and globally while today’s one aimed at creating a nexus between the traditional journalists and the bloggers in order to augment the level of reporting in the country.

In the training workshop besides journalists who had also attended the previous session, expert bloggers from different parts of the country also took part in the workshop.

Nighat Dad, Farhan Khalid and Usama Khilji were the speakers whereas Shaukat Ali Ashraf moderated the workshop. On the occasion, trainer Farhan recalled the last session (summary of whatever was discussed in the earlier programme) while IT expert Nighat and Usama then took over and discussed in details their role in journalism as a blogger.

Moreover, they also created a “master blog” on social media website “WordPress” with the help of inputs from all the participants. This blog will be monitored in future by all participants of workshop as well as the speakers (bloggers).

The last session revolved around the formation of two groups in which bloggers and working journalists would be working together to assist each other in gathering news information and sharing experiences to get feedback from commoners and authorities concerned.

The main purpose of formation of two groups was not only to create a contact between the social and traditional media, but also to improve the overall standard of journalism in the country. All the participants actively participated in the workshop and made it a success.

The Nation