• May 11, 2005
• General News, Training and Capacity Building
• Web Desk

Date: May 11,2005
Location: Larkana

Pakistan Press Foundation organized three-day Journalism Training Workshop for local journalists and women at Larkana, Sindh from 11 to13 May, 2005 with the collaboration of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES).

Larkana is situated in the Northwest of Sindh province and is an important city of northern Sindh both commercially and politically. It has two colleges affiliated with the University of Sindh. Larkana, named after the Larak tribe that inhabited the neighboring area, is the birthplace of former Pakistani premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. World’s oldest archeological site Mohen-Jo-Daro lies just 28 kilometers from the downtown that dates back to 5000 years.

The workshop was held at the cultural and social centre of the Larkana Labor Hall, which was attended by 24 participants, including 11 women. Participants belonged to different national, regional, and local news papers and magazines.

The PPF team consisted of Mr. Fazal Qureshi, Vice Chairman PPF, Tariq Ahmed, Workshop Coordinator, and Iqbal Babu, Correspondent PPI in Larkana was the organizer of the programme.

Mr. Tariq Ahmed outlined principal objectives of the workshop. Later, Mr. Fazal Qureshi compared news writing with literary writing and made a point that very one could learn the skill of writing for newspapers. This was followed by the principals of news writing and the working of Inverted Pyramid in news writing. There was an open discussion with questions and answers covering a wide range of subjects related to news writing.

The next segment was on article and feature writing. The lecture stressed on the need for professional preparation of a proper manuscript, the importance of photographs and finally on how to market articles and features in the media. In the practical exercise, the participants were asked to select a subject, write an article on some issue of their area which could be used for release to the newspapers. The output was then discussed in open session and evaluated. The participants were given home assignment to write an article on the subject which they had selected earlier.

The article written by the participants were presented and discussed. Later, the importance of maintaining reference records on subjects of interest to the writers was highlighted. An open discussion followed in which participants gave their feedback on the workshop.

Mr. Mehmood Sharaf Siddiqui, Correspondent The News describing his views on the effectiveness of workshop said, this kind of training workshop is indispensable for capacity building of journalists. And the workshop did definitely augur well for novice and experienced writers equally. He said he could now confidently pen down essays.

Syed Muzzam Sultan Bukhari, Reporter APP termed the workshop best in quality and also said that variety in topics would be more beneficial for learners.

Mr. Ayaz Sario from Daily Khabroon said the workshop had taught many things unknown to him. The lectures were in understandable language spoon feeding complicated topics. He also suggested that PPF must organize such workshops at least twice a year.

The female participants appreciated the ways through which writing concepts were imbibed. They were of the views that writing would now be more habitual in their daily routine.
Miss Fehmida Rahujo said that the standard of workshop was excellent and we learnt a lot from it. Now we have the skill to project our thoughts and ideas to the general public through the media.

Miss Ghazala said that the teaching in workshop was very effective. I feel such workshops should be held on a regular basis.Miss Nasreen Channa said that I have gained a lot from this workshop and can now hope to project my views through the media. She felt more such workshop especially for women should be organized.

The closing session was presided over by Professor Irshad Hussain Qureshi, Principal Public School, Larkana, who distributed certificates to the participants. In his speech, he praised PPF and welcomed the decision to include women in the workshop. He emphasized that news has far reaching impact on society. Writers must always remember this reality and write cautiously, he concluded.