Journalists bring home skills for news reportage

By MYRA M. TAMBOR
February 8, 2008

CATBALOGAN CITY, Samar  –  Selected journalists from all over the country goes home with added skills as they finished the closing workshop for the Probe Media Foundation Fellowship Training for Children and Disasters held at Cebu City last February 1-4, 2008.

Bringing home new information and latest strategies on news reportage, the journalists aired enthusiasm over the fellowship training.  They lauded the organizer headed by Ms. Yasmin Tang, Executive Director of Probe Media Foundation and her team, the evaluators headed by UP Professor Mel S. Estonilo and former PCIJ Training Director Yvonne Chua.

October of 2007 when PMFI identified 20 media practitioners for the UNICEF funded Media Fellowship training.  According to Tang, they have announced and posted the invitations seeking for journalists to apply for the said fellowship training.  Tang added that the response to their postings was overflowing.  Hence a more profound guidelines on screening was implemented.

From Eastern Visayas Region, only 2 among the many applicants was able to get in to the fellowship.  The participants include broadcast journalists for Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao and correspondents from the TV networks based in Manila.

The participants presented their output after the October 2007 Opening Workshop.  It was evaluated by fellow journalists and a panel of reactors.  Most of the output focuses on the issue of children facing disasters.

“This is a realization that issues like this can mean good stories that will elicit LGUs commitment and push them to act on it”. Yasmin Dormido of ABS-CBN Bacolod said.

Meanwhile, Professor Mel S. Estonilo of the College of Broadcast Communications University of the Phils., Diliman said that she is just so happy to note that this kind of stories especially news features has actually find its space on radio.  She hopes that journalists who was able to attend the said fellowship training will be able to sustain such kind of reportage.

While former PCIJ Training Director Yvonne Chua for her part said “that the comments of the journalists every end of a training really inspired me to do more especially for the community journalists.  This validates my advocacy on training this persons who does much at the community level in terms of quality journalism”.