Young Journalists Vow to Work as Anti-corruption Activists

It was a wonderful experience for Gazi Sadek – a university correspondent of Daily Jugantar. Sadek used to send reports regularly to his Dhaka office but never received any feedback on quality of his reporting. “I got a lot of tips on how to maintain standard investigative journalism and reduce legal challenges.”he said. Not only Sadek, similar is the case with all the journalists of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) as they, for the first time learnt about different aspects of investigative journalism.

Though most of them are working in several national and local media, they never received any formal training on journalism from media houses or any other organizations. A total of 35 journalists participated the two day long IJ training held from 23 - 24 May organised by TIB at the university campus. At the very beginning of the two day training, Journalists shared their experiences regarding barriers and challenges of investigative journalism while facilitators discussed about the probable ways to tackle these challenges.

Knowing the provisions of designated RTI officials, the young journalists expressed their dissatisfaction over the absence of designated Information Officer at the university which they consider as a major obstacle to get information. They also criticized the role of university authority regarding restrictions on writing social networking websites about university issues. 

The training covered primary concept of journalism and investigative journalism, Steps and strategies, its necessity in Bangladesh, interview process for reporting, were covered during the first day of the training. At the very beginning, Journalists shared their experiences regarding barriers and challenges of investigative journalism while facilitators discussed about the probable ways to tackle these challenges.

On the concluding day, reporting ground identification in educational institutions, process of report writing, use of Right to Information Act were discussed. The whole training programme was quite interactive. There were group works where they devised individual work plans to apply the learnings.

Associate Professor of Rajshahi University Journalism Department Dr Pradip Kumar Panday, Assistant Professor of Dhaka University Journalism department Saiful Alom Chowdhury, Special Correspondent of ATN News Mashudul Haque, Senior Programme Manager of TIB Outreach and Communication Division M Sajjad Hussein, Programme Manager Shahanaz Momotaz spoke on different sessions. Inaugurating the training, Dr Tulshi Kumar Das member of Committee of Concerned Citizens (CCC) and Professor, Department of Social Work, SUST emphasised on unbiased and investigative reporting aiming to establish good governance and rule of law. Mr Samik Shaheed Jahan Vice President of CCC urged the young journalists to actively participate in anti-corruption social movement and support the CCC activities. All the participants took anti corruption oath at the end of the training and vowed to work as anti-corruption social activist.