Improving press freedom and safety of journalists is a project underway to benefit thirty journalists in Monrovia, as has been disclosed by Center for Media Studies and Peacebuilding (CEMESP).
The workshop will be conducted on Saturday, August 22, 2020 at the ideal venue of I-Campus, which makes for observing social distancing and COVID-19 prevention protocols.
Media Foundation for West Africa is partnering with its Liberia national partner, CEMESP, on the project.
The Executive Director of CEMESP, Malcolm Joseph, says, “We are grateful to the embassy of Netherlands in Ghana for seeing the need to support the training at this challenging time.”
Senior journalists, based on gender inclusivity, are key consideration in the selection of participants for the one-day capacity building training of trainers. It is therefore expected that trainees will replicate the training content in the various media outlets: newspapers, radio television and online platforms.
This project makes the assumption that where journalists know the safety issues in covering and reporting stories they will be self-guarded from running into troubling situations at this time of COVID-19 and the unfolding electioneering process.
Already, local trainers have been identified to present topics, that include Basics of Safety in Journalism: Risks Awareness and Physical Safety, Working with the Security Agencies, Digital and Cyber Safety and Identifying Safety Mechanisms Available to Journalists.
CEMESP training workshops are always subjected to pre- and post-test evaluation that probes participants’ expectation and appraisals of content and delivery of resource materials and persons.
This is not the first time Media Foundation for West Africa has partnered in conducting safety training for journalists in Liberia: during the past general and presidential election an extensive capacity and rapport building engagements between journalists and the Police leadership was held in Monrovia.