Intermedia recently held a series of training workshops on issue-based media coverage of elections for journalists from across Pakistan working with newspapers, wire agencies and magazines in all the four provinces. Four workshops in the first phase were held at the following locations;
• Quetta (August 7-9, 2007)
• Karachi (August 11-13, 2007)
• Murree (August 18 - 20)
• Nathiagali (August 23 - 25)
The last five-day “Advance Training” will be held in Islamabad September 8-12, 2007 that would be attended by the selected participants from the first four trainings. The details of all the five trainings would soon be available on our website.
The objective of the training is to develop the capacity of Pakistani media to improve reporting of election issues as a means of increasing awareness of political, electoral and legislative issues and educating the voters through media.
The upcoming general election will be the first in Pakistan 's history to be held in the presence of a vibrant private sector broadcast media – radio and television – and is expected to impact people's political choices in a major way. In such a situation the role of print media becomes all the more important to focus on issues through research-based reports, features and analysis.
Senior journalists, political scientists and election monitoring experts will be supervising sessions of the workshop being conducted by Intermedia, a Pakistani media development organization working to foster open media and communications policies, and funded by the British High Commission (BHC).
Issue-based coverage incorporating electoral processes, monitoring of elections, the roles of the Election Commission, government, political parties and other democratic institutions would be discussed in detail during the workshop.
During the last two decades in Pakistan , the general focus of media during general elections has largely been on personalities rather than parties and their manifestoes, accountability and manipulation of political processes. Media coverage of these issues in Pakistan is usually limited to reporting of the pre-election pledges by the politicians and election results. Focus on how people's choices are affected by political manipulation through laws and electoral processes is generally lacking.
For any further queries you may contact
Mr. Aly Khan
051-2611971
0321-5105689.
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