Summary of workshop
Key facts
Date: 09-11 May, 2006
Venue: Sarban Hotel, Abbottabad
Participants: 13 from Punjab and NWFP
Agenda: Training was structured according to the manual – starting with the present trends of covering legal and political issues, human rights situation in the country
Internews Team: Matiullah Jan, Media Law & Policy Advisor
Muhammad Najeeb, Journalism Development Advisor
Farrukh K. Pitafi, Media Resource Manager
Guest speaker: Athar Waheed, ASP Abbottabad
Visit: Abbottabad District Courts
Introduction
Over the past few years, the Pakistan government has been amending laws including radically changing the local governance and policing systems. These transformative changes have set in motion a spate of new laws, regulations, and procedures. With the media in general not grounded in investigative skills or trained in legal interpretation, public understanding of the implications of legal changes that affect their rights and access to justice is severely limited.
Media coverage of these issues in Pakistan is usually limited to reporting of the passage of a law but not its interpretation or reference. Focus on how people are affected by an existing or changed law is even rarer. To address this issue, Internews is holding three training workshops aimed at building the capacity of journalists and media organizations in legal and political reporting.
The second of the three workshops was held in Abbottabad (May 09-11, 2006) in which 13 journalists from electronic and print media participated. The first workshop was held in Karachi in March, 2006. The training workshops focused on legal and political reporting, with specific reference to human rights, to improve coverage and public knowledge on these issues.
The following issues were particularly taken up during the three days;
- Reporting parliamentary efforts and political lobbying
- Understanding and interpreting legislative bills
- Practical solutions to cover rights-based issues
- Covering law enforcement practices, including rights abuses such as extrajudicial killings and death in police custody
- Court and crime reporting focusing on access to justice issues
- Knowledge and practical tools to deal with contempt laws (libel, slander, contempt of court)
The participants were given brief lectures on coverage of legal and political issues and why it was important for journalists to promote human rights. The lectures were followed by extensive discussion on these issues during which the participants, representing NWFP and Punjab discussed their journalistic experiences.
Murid Abbas Jatoi, the reporter who first reported gang-rape incident of Mukhtaran Mai, was also participated in the workshop and narrated the details how he came to know about the incident and what difficulties he faced in reporting the incident and follow-up.
The participants unanimously agreed that a free press was important in highlighting and promoting human rights issues. They also called for protecting and strengthening democratic and legal institutions in the country. They also gave recommendations how journalists could play a role in promoting human rights issues.
On second day of the workshop, the participants were taken to district courts in Abbottabad where they discussed different cases with the lawyers and litigants. The participants also met Barrister Adam Khan, president of Peshawar High Court Bar Association, Abbottabad Banch.
Selection criteria
- Nominated by their supervisor or heads of the organization
- At least three years work experience in print or electronic media
- Covering political and/or legal issues
- Working for radio, television or newspaper
Participants
- Two from FM radio
- One from news portal
- Ten from print media
Training Material
A comprehensive training material was developed covering parliamentary and legal affairs broadly with reference to human rights issues. The material carried readings, exercises and quizzes for the participants. The participants were encouraged to share their experiences and training material with their colleagues after going to their work.
Day 1
Introduction: Instead of introducing themselves, the participants were divided in groups of twos and were given five minutes to exchange information to introduce each other. The objective of this exercise was to encourage the participants to share personal views and experiences among their colleagues.
The participants were given a 45-page training manual which contained readings, exercises, quizzes and a few blank worksheets. The participants were given background of Internews, objectives of the training and a brief introduction to the training manual.
The participants were also asked about their expectations/outcomes of the workshop. Some of the issues raised by the participants in beginning of the workshop were;
- How media laws protect journalists
- How media can promote political leadership/politics
- How working journalists can by-pass owners’ interests
- What are implications of defamation laws
- How to highlight human rights in media
- Linkages between human rights and media
- What is exactly Access to Information law
- How journalists can keep balance in their reports by avoiding biases
The list of all these issues pointed out by the participants was kept in front of them throughout the workshop and were frequently referred to during discussions.
After introducing participants with journalism definitions given in different dictionaries and books, they were asked to write down their own definition.
All the participants were unanimous in their definitions that journalism should be people-oriented. The participants were introduced to model – how to collect and disseminate information – by digging into the hidden agendas of operators and discovering the blind spot. The importance of feedback in reporting was also discussed.
Through an exercise, the participants were asked to examine uses of power to collect information that a journalist would like to share with readers, listeners and viewers. They were of the view that they have used different strategies to collect information but never realized how powerful these strategies can be.
The following strategies, to collect information, were discussed;
- Use of organization’s reputation and credibility
- Journalist’s position in an organization
- In possession of some exclusive data
- Professional experience
- Observing time and deadlines given by the information provider
- By physically threatening people
- Physical appearance – being well-dressed
- Using money – bribery
- Using ethnicity
- Using flattering or guilt-induction words
- Speaking ability
- References – family or friends
- Being humorous
On Day two, the participants were briefed on parliamentary procedures, legislative bills, importance and role of political parties in democratic societies. They were also given a quiz with an objective that participants should realize the importance of basic information about their respective beats.
The participants were taken to the District Courts in Abbottabad where they discussed legal issues with president of the Peshawar High Court Bar Association, Abbottabad bench, and met some of the litigants.
Assistant Superintendent of Police, Abbottabad, Athar Waheed was invited to the workshop as a resource person. In his hour-long presentation, he highlighted the new police laws, the changes in policing and his experiences as a police officer. The session was followed by question/answer session.
On Third Day, the participants were lectured on why journalists should be concerned with human rights. The role of journalists was discussed in detail in highlighting human rights issues. The following issues were discussed in detail;
- Journalists’ triple interest in human rights
- Alerting people to abuse of rights
- What tools do journalists need
- Human rights touch every area of life
- Journalists as opinion makers
- Functions of parliament – links between rights and parliament
- Relationship between journalists and politicians
- Journalists access to parliamentarian documents – committee reports, bills presented in the Assembly, questions submitted by members etc.
- Importance of question hour
- Increasing demand for sustainable democracy
- Increasing demand for transparency in politics
- What are bills and how best they can be interpreted?
- Practical solutions to rights-based issues
- How to promote Human Rights debate in parliament, among political parties
- Sources of information in parliament – legislation branch, secretary standing committee
The participants were also briefed on defamation laws and following issues were discussed in detail;
- Covering law enforcement practices
- Extrajudicial killings and deaths in police custody
- Court reporting – access to justice
- International Covenant on civil and political rights and how it defines a fair trial
- Contempt of court
- Libel and slander
Participants Feedback on training
Feedback by the participants to the respective questions
1. What is new you have learnt from this training?
- Several new aspects of journalism were highlighted during the workshop
- Sharing of personal experiences was good and I enjoyed the exercises given in the manual
- The concept of human rights has become clear to me. I’ve also learnt about rights of journalists, media laws etc
- New ideas – rules and ethics and responsibilities of a journalist
- Necessity of knowledge of laws regarding court reporting and access to public documents
- I became aware about journalists rights
- I’ve learnt to investigate and relate human rights with political and legal issues
- I am confident that now I can write much better news reports
- I became aware about my rights as a journalist
2. Any suggestion to improve future training?
- More resource persons like senior judges, policy makers and senior journalists should be invited
- Issues like heal and education should also be included in the workshop
- Power-Point presentation should be included
- There should be follow-up trainings
- Such trainings should be conducted four times in a year
- Teaching through audio/visual aid
- Sessions should be shortened
- Management of media organizations should also be included
- There should be more resource persons
- More practical examples should be included
- New media laws should be explained in detail
3. What else do you want to be included in this training?
- There should be more breaks during training sessions
- Outing (recreation) should be included
- One day should be fixed for practical training
- Sessions should be made friendlier
4. How do you find the method of training?
- Training was conducted in friendly atmosphere
- Teaching method was “very easy and understandable”
- Interactive approach was an excellent idea
- We were introduced to new reporting techniques/tools
- Participants were engaged in discussion and allowed to talk freely
5. How would you rate the training manual? Please describe
- The manual approach was very practical, easy to understand and all journalistic issues were included in it
- It contains a lot of information which can help us in future as well
- Manual carries “enough” material for learning
- There were many political and legal issues/information that were new to me
- Very well planned
6. To what extent this training has improved your legal and political reporting?
- The information and training given on political and legal issues was substantial
- It has strengthened my grip on political and legal issues
- Now I have guidelines for journalism
- There were several guidelines for me
- In a situation when government is changing laws/policies frequently, such trainings are very useful
- It enhanced my confidence
- Now I can make my news reports more informative
- I’ve learnt new ways of reporting legal and political issues
7. Any comments about arrangements/logistics?
- All the participants expressed their satisfaction about the arrangements
8. Do you think three days are enough for such kind of training?
- Some of the participants said that three days were enough while others said that there should be follow-up trainings
9. Any other comment?
- Selection of Abbottabad for such a workshop was an excellent idea
- Resource persons motivated us to read and acquire knowledge
- Inclusion of field trip was good
List of Participants
- Muhammad Humayun Gulzar, Daily Sayadat, Bahawalpur
- Zaheer Shahzad, Pakistan Press International (PPI), Lahore
- Muhammad Nadir Zubair Nabi, Daily Ghareeb, Faisalabad
- Najmul Hassan Arif, Daily Pakistan, Lahore
- Faisalur Rehman, FM Jeevey Pakistan, Lodhran
- Amir Riaz, Daily The Nation, Lahore
- Muhammad Asif Mian, Peshawar1.com, (news portal)
- Muhammad Javed, Apna FM-89, Layyah
- Shahzad Anjum, Daily Aaj, Peshawar
- Maseehur Rehman, Daily Express, Peshawar
- Ahmed Awais Arif, Daily Abaseen, Rahimyar Khan
- Ahmed Ali Khan, Daily Kainaat, Bahawalpur
- Murid Abass Jatoi, Daily Khabrain, Multan
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