Experts for sensitising media on human rights,training,networking

Panaji, Oct 15(UNI) South Asian media experts have favoured training of journalists on various aspects of human rights, both in-house and in mass communications institutes, besides sensitising the editors on the need for renewed reporting on the sensitive issue.

''This would help sensitize the media on reporting about conflicts in the society with a human touch,besides promoting building up of regional networks for media at risk in covering the issues,''the experts opined.

This is one of the recommendations of the 3-day South Asia Media Colloquium-2006 which concluded here today. It was organised jointly by the prestigious Asian Media Information and Communications Centre (AMIC-India), FriedrichEbert Stiftung(Germany) and International Centre-Goa.

More than 40 specialists including those from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Srilanka besides representatives of different media units from India participated in the colloquium.

The group that discussed on safeguarding human rights by media had also called for strengthening partnerships by enabling a dialogue between the media and the civil society to understand each other in needs and constraints.

It had also reitereated the need for widening the constituency base from which the media practitioners are dawn, and sought encouraging Dalit or tribal Journalists to voice the situation of the community or seek to bridge the gap.

Another group that debated on ''Empowerment of Women: Are Media an Aid or Impediment?'' under the chairmanship of Pakistan's resident editor of The Post Mr Nusrat Javeed, asked the journalism schools to monitor editorial content, both news and entertainment slots to judge how women and women issues had been portrayed.

Apart from forwarding their findings to relevant media units and creating follow up cells, the media establishments should hold in-house and mandatory sessions on gender sensitisation besides drawing a code of conduct on covering gender issues.

The group had further favoured introduction of internship programmes for young women journalists to develop professional skills and capacity building.

The group on ''Portraying Poverty: Are Media Failing the Poor?'' chaired by Inam Ahmed (Bangladesh), said media were not failing the poor, but they certainly had not done enough to their rescue.

''Hence the media should now seriously think of diverting its manpower and money from lighter aspects of the society (fashion, entertainment, sports) to serious aspects like poverty,'' it said.

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