More than twenty young volunteers and student journalists have received training on election reporting as part of the Citi FM – Star Ghana election project.
The participants, from all ten regions of the country benefited from a theoretical and practical training over the 3-month-period from June to September in Accra.
The training program, was aimed at building the capacity of young Ghanaian journalists to report effectively and accurately on the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections.
All trainees were taken through sessions in data analysis, media ethics, multimedia journalism and radio reporting to enable them play vital roles in Citi FM’s strategic Election 2016 coverage plan.
The 2016 elections, tagged as a historic one especially after the 2012 election petition, presents a peculiar situation for the media in Ghana, to uphold the country’s democracy and test its effective role in Ghana’s democracy.
Samuel Attah-Mensah, the Chief Executive Officer of Citi FM said, the training was important to develop the practical skills of the reporters who will be required to deliver accurate and quality reports before, during and after the upcoming elections.
He said the skills the trainees had benefited from, were relevant to their careers as young journalists and persons who would serve very important roles in the development of their communities.
Bernard Avle, the Director of News Programming at Citi FM said, the station, which is currently the most listened to English-speaking station in Ghana, is rolling out its comprehensive election coverage programme, ahead of the elections, to serve its listeners with quality, timely and accurate reportage from the various constituencies across the country.
He said the station was also collaborating with the Center for Democratic Development (CDD), to hold parliamentary debates in some constituencies, as a way of exposing constituents to the vision of their respective parliamentary aspirants.
All trainees received smartphones with pre-installed applications meant to facilitate their work on the election coverage.
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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana