The Center for Media Studies and Peacebuilding (CEMESP) has concluded a three-day training of community radio journalists in Gompa, Nimba County, on how they can effectively cover and report elections in a conflict-sensitive manner. “The intervention, as a preparedness plan for the pending elections, is in line with the Liberia Media Activity Project, supported by USAID through Internews,” a CEMESP press release stated.
Providing an overview of the training, the lead trainer, Frank Sainworla, reminded the journalists that they should use the training contents as tools for professional engagement in guarding against the host of conflict-prone issues that are foreseeable based on prevailing trends at this phase of the electoral cycle.
Sainworla said a journalist must know the rules governing the elections to be able to transmit them in holding politicians and political parties accountable.
CEMESP’s Senior Program Officer, Albert Baron Ansu, entreated the training recipients to be sensitive to the safety issues that come with the coverage of elections by applying skills and resources transmitted in the training for credible and peaceful electoral outcome. He described the training as experience-sharing in nature where the trainers tease out county specific insights from the community radio journalists from Maryland, River Gee, Lofa, Grand Gedeh and Nimba counties.
Scenarios were created as practical exercises for the journalists to go into groups and brainstorm on how to respond to such situations that might arise during the electoral cycle.
The journalists were a blend of males and females, some of whom had prior exposure to such training contents and needed to brush up, and those who indicated that it was their first time to benefit from a training on election and conflict-sensitive reporting.
Participants of the training were cautioned against fake news, which are replete in social media, and encouraged to utilize fact-checking skills of asking the right questions and the use of tact to detect images and sound bites that have the potential of causing unintended consequences. They also discussed the power of music in promoting peace during elections.