To study and hands-on-activity on the topic there gathered journalists of printed and online media from Donbas and Crimea. The training is conducted under the project “Regional Eye – Strengthening conflict sensitive coverage in Ukraine’s regional media”.
The training is funded by the European Union. And Thompson Foundation together with the Institute for Regional Media and Information are conducting the training sessions in partnership with National Association of Journalists.
For 5 days 15 journalists work on stories about life of the displaced persons in real time. The first day is a discussion of approaches to the topic, the Law of Ukraine, international standards and experience. For the next two days the journalists worked in Kharkiv region, where the IDPs live now. They were in Izyum, Kupyansk and Barvenkovo. Meetings and interviews were planned in such a way that the journalists could visit remote villages, where people have more problems and less opportunities to resolve them, compared to those who live in big cities.
Then – there is discussion of the stories with the colleagues and experts. Oliver Wates, the media trainer from Great Britain for Thomson Foundation, IRMI experts for public communication and journalism Angelina Soldatenko and the lawyer-scientist in the area of Constitutional Law and refugees’ rights Mykhaylo Buromenskyi – share their experience during the training.
By the end of the training every participant will receives actual, balanced material to cover in his/her media outlet.
When getting acquainted and telling about their expectations, the journalists say that they would like to find new aspects of covering the topic. They want to learn to write not only about the IDPs, but also for these people, be helpful. They are interested in legal and ethical aspects of covering the topic.
And on 9 November in Kharkov there will start a training for regional TV journalists, who are interested in covering IDP-related stories.
“Regional Eye – Strengthening conflict sensitive coverage in Ukraine’s regional media” – is a 1,5 year project, which is funded by the European Union and implemented by the Media Consortium of five organizations: Thompson Foundation, the Institute for Regional Media and Information, the European Journalism Centre, MEMO 98 and Association “Spilnyi Prostir”.
For more information, please, contact the IRMI office at irmi.ukraine@gmail.com or the National Association of Journalists: oblik@nsju.org.
