WORKSHOP ON

“JOURNALISM FOR EVERYONE”

 

Hotel Singgahsana, Pesiaran Barat, Off Jalan Sultan

Petaling Jaya

11 – 13 June 2007

 

A 3-day Workshop on “Journalism for Everyone”, designed especially for all categories of personnel who were involved in media communications, and any student or individual who is interested in journalism, was organised by Aidcom from 11 – 13 June 2007 at the Singgahsana Hotel in Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

A diverse group of participants consisting of communications and assistant managers, PR and operations executives, a Chairperson of the Board of Trustees, and individuals attended this Workshop.  We were expecting some overseas participants but the timing of this Workshop was not very opportune as some participants from Brunei were unable to come because of their duties in preparation for the marriage of the Sultan’s daughter.  The participants from Timor Leste did not have enough time to get approval for complete funding of their participation.

At the conclusion of the Workshop, the participants appreciated and had a good understanding of the media, what constituted news values and news sources, what was the news and what was the story,how to write the introduction and the body of the story, how to write a news feature or article, how to write letters to the editor, and also worked on some practical exercises, including making use of some techniques to ask critical questions to acquire the necessary data and information for writing the news stories or feature articles.

From the Evaluation Fore which was distributed at the end of the Workshop, the participants generally were happy that overall, this Workshop was able to achieve its objective to help anyone who was interested in writing to the media to acquire some of the essential professional skills of journalism.  Several of the participants expressed interests to attend another or a more advanced workshop on journalism, particularly with a focus on techniques of writing and press releases with the fact sheets.