PESHAWAR: Speakers at a training workshop asked the users of social media to follow ethics and use the fast emerging medium for the benefits of the people.

The three-day training workshop titled “Digital Citizen Journalism” was organised by Individualland (IL) at a local hotel here on Thursday. Mashhud Ali and Saifullah Khokar acted as resource persons and shared information with the participants about use of social media.

Students of various educational institutions, representatives of local government bodies and members of minorities took part in the training and shared their experiences with each other.

The trainers said that promotion of mobile journalism among people could assist them in becoming smart social media users with the ability to identify fake content and develop and disseminate their own content.

Speakers term mobile journalism essential skill for news professionals

They told the participants how to use portable devices such as smart phones, tablets, digital cameras and laptops for gathering, shooting, live broadcasting, editing or sharing news.

The trainers also informed the participants about sending news to the newsroom or sharing directly on social media. They trained the participants in basic camera techniques and shooting short films.

The resource persons said that social media was a good tool to highlight social issues and engage the users into positive activities. They said that misunderstandings and misconceptions could be eliminated through social media if the users knew the ethics and code of conduct.

“From breaking political news to covering village fairs, mobile journalism or MOJO, as we call it, is now an essential skill for journalists,” said Rukhmina Bibi, a member of the local town council.

Syed Salih Shah, a youth councillor, said that mobile journalism enabled the news professionals to produce more stories while staying on a location and giving updates as stories break. He said that users of social media needed to be trained to produce stuff meant for development of the society.

The participants demanded check on social media to discourage anti-state and anti-social elements, who could easily manage to spread fake and baseless reports for harming the country.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2019