Media
SEARCH for Common Ground (SEARCH), an International NGO working on peace building and conflict transformation, on Thursday concluded a two-day training of 30 media practitioners in Kogi on Common-Ground-Journalism with a call on them to promote peace in their reportage.
Mrs Gift Omoniwa, SEARCH Project Coordinator in the state, in her advocacy message at the end of the workshop in Lokoja, said the training was to prepare journalists for the Nov. 16 off-cycle governorship election in the state.
Omoniwa said that many stakeholders had inadvertently influenced drivers of conflict and electoral violence in the course of their duties, hence the need to mainstream conflict sensitivity in media reportage and support journalists to constructively report on elections.
“The objectives of the two-day training include mainstreaming conflict sensitivity in media reportage, supporting journalists to constructively report on the elections without contributing to the drivers of electoral violence.
She said that the training themed: “Think Election, Think Peace; Media Against Hate Speech” featured presentations on Media in Conflict Reporting, Mainstream media, Social media, Giving voice to marginalised groups and Responsible media coverage of elections.”
She said SEARCH intervention in Kogi was to contribute to increased participation by marginalised groups in Nigerian political processes with special focus on violence mitigation for the 2019 Off-Cycle Governorship Polls in Kogi and Bayelsa.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that other sessions of the training featured Hate Speech trends, Development of peace messages, Early Warning toward Preventing Electoral Violence and Building media synergies among numerous topics presented.
The common ground Journalism training was facilitated by Temisan Etietsola, Search’s Media Manager, Joy Baiye, Media and Outreach Coordinator, Lola Mamedu, Early Warning Coordinator and Gift Omoniwa, State Project Coordinator.
Speaking earlier, the Media Manager, Temisan Etietsola, said the training was being executed under the Electoral Empowerment of Civil Society Project (EECSP), a consortium implementing a five-year initiative.
The initiative, according to him, aims to improve impartial observation, accurate reporting and recording of election vote totals by domestic electoral observers, improve management within Nigerian partner CSOs; and increase participation by marginalised groups in Nigerian political processes.
The Consortium includes the National Democratic Institute (NDI) as the lead partner, World Learning (WL), Search for Common Ground (SFCG), and the Center for Democratic Development – Ghana (CDD-Ghana).
“Search for Common Ground launched its programmes in Nigeria in 2004 and had been working with partners in target states of the country to support peaceful resolution of conflict. Each programme is adapted to specific local context and conflicts, applying common ground tools”, he said.
NAN
-Sep 26, 2019 @ 19:18 GMT |
Tags: electoral violence mitigation in Kogi NGO trains 30 journalists on Hate-speech
