Multimedia tools for effective election reporting

To equip journalists with new media tools for effective election reporting on November 28-December 2, 2011 Internews Media Support NGO organised a five-day training for acting journalists from various media outlets: regional TV, radio, on-line newspapers. The training was conduted by Henrik Hansen, a Danish journalist, editor and also a media trainer with a 19-year extensive experience in TV and radio.

“I tried to highlight the importance of quality election reporting combining it with new media. It was important to focus on the role of the media in the democratic election processes and the important mission of media to work with the agenda of the voters and the ways of involving them directly. And this is where the potential of new media is strong,” says Henrik Hansen.

The first days of the training  were dedicated to the role and responsibilities of media during elections;  international practice of involving voters was introduced. The next three days the participants worked in the groups to create their own web platforms where they tried to apply new media tools for quality and unbiased election reporting.

The last day of the training each group made a presenation of their site created on WordPress and multimedia tools that were introduced. Follow the links to the created resources: http://imqven.wordpress.com/  http://armenianvote.wordpress.com

Artur Barsegyan, “Qyavar” regional TV: “I had an opportunity to learn about international experience and see the whole potential that new media possesses today. I had little knowledge of new media as we still use traditional ways of providing information. But we are already planning to launch a website, blog and integrate it with social media, and the training was a good incentive. I learned a lot about WordPress platform and I am willing to continue discover the useful features it has.”

Mery Alexanyan, a journalist for Human Rights in Armenia website: “I have had some experience using new media tools for news coverage. I could increase my knowledge, learn new and interactive ways of providing information such as visually engaging timelines that integrate video, audio, images, text, links.”

Qnarik Harutyunyan, Tsayg TV, Gyumri: “ I am very much satisfied with the training. We used to working with traditional media tools and feel confident with alternative ways of providing  information . Though our TV has website, and it is also present in Facebook the training helped me realise that we are not effectively using them. We are just providing on-sided information without involving our audiences into conversation, opinion sharing. I discovered the advantages of Livestream plugin that is a strong tool  and can be very useful in providing instant and objective information. I am eager to share all my knowledge with my colleagues.”

Maraiam Mughdusyan, freelance journalist, working for zham.am and ankakh.com on-line newspapers: “ I liked the way the training was constructed. It was very useful both for those who are just starting to use new media tools and those who already have some knowledge and experience but would like to learn more.  Today, the visualization of information is of great importance and the ability to combine texts with photos, videos, graphics, timeline makes communication more effective and interactive .I was happy to learn how the Livestream works  and live chat opportunity it provides .”

More photos on Flickr.