© 2019. ILLUSTRATION BY PEACE DIALOGUE NGO
Peace Dialogue organized and hosted its first training in civic journalism for regional youth from northern Armenian between 29 September and 2 October in Gyumri. 18 young men and women (ages 16-25) traveled to Gyumri to attend an event led by the creative producer at Armenian Public TV (H1) Armen Sargsyan and media trainer Mane Papyan.
The four-day event, organized as part of a project entitled “Preparing New Generation Civic Journalists in the Northern Regions of Armenia” which is funded by the Canadian government’s Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI), began with discussions on journalistic theory and what the role of journalists is in democratic societies. Participating youth learned what the work of journalists and civic journalists involves and also acquired information on the ethical aspects of journalism. The first part of the training led by Armen Sargsyan included practical fieldwork where participants learned how to produce short articles with related visual content. During the latter half of the event, students were briefed on how to research and write about stories of local interest. Afterwards, they had time to go out into the city and develop their own news story ideas. This included fact-collecting, filming impromptu interviews, and then writing more-developed news articles.
At the end of the event, all participants had the chance to present their work to their peers and engage in in-depth discussions of the materials they produced. Likewise, they received feedback from project trainers on how they could adjust and improve their journalistic outputs, so as to make them more impactful for local audiences.
All participants will spend the coming months developing and writing new stories based on current events in their home communities. Their individual news reports will be reviewed and critiqued via online consultations with project trainers, and the best outputs from the youth civic journalists will be published on the Peace Dialogue website and in other media channels.
Project participants will meet again in December 2019 in Dilijan to receive intensive training in photo-video journalism.
The project “Training Next-Generation Civic Journalists in Northern Armenia as Future Democracy Watchdogs” is supported by the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives.
