Doing our part to make a difference

…And the organisers of Youth Truth News, a Citizen Journalism training event, is doing just that.

Speakers at Youth Truth News - Basic Citizen Journalism
course Series Two, held at Iskandar Space

Held at Iskandar Space within Affiniti Medini, Iskandar Puteri, in a day-long event, this series of public training events, provided Free-of-Charge, was organized by The Iskandarian, the official newspapers of Iskandar Malaysia.

Starting from our little corner of the world in Johor, they are doing their part to make a difference in the world of writing and photography, one step at a time.

As in the Series One training event entitled, Youth Truth News – Basic Citizen Journalism Course held in June 2019, the Series Two event was organised with fellow speakers for modules on Writing, facilitated by Salamahafifi Yusnaieny, a journalist with The Iskandarian while Media Law was shared by Balbeer Singh, Head of Legal & Secretarial Services with Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA).

A helpful sign at the entrance into the carpark

A session on the topic of Photography was facilitated by award-winning professional photographer and certified Master Photographer, Nicholas Vincent of NWorks Photography.

It’s my privilege to be part of the training team to share an Introduction to the World of Writing and Journalism, presented for the second time in Series Two of this Truth News Citizen Journalism training event.

This was a public event, targeted at youths to provide participants with the basic guidelines, tips and ethics in writing and posting words and photographs in print, so my presentation aims to inspire and motivate them with my own story.

I shared from my personal journey and experience, to show participants how an ordinary Johor Baru girl made her way to becoming a published author – and how my stories and books are now connecting people to Johor.

A section of participants in the smaller event hall

Prior to the event, I had discussed with the organisers about the venue and how I preferred a smaller hall so that I don’t have to use a microphone.

As the first speaker in the day’s event, I was at the venue ahead of time to set up my presentation along with a bunch of supporting visuals.

From our experience in the Series One event, the organisers and speakers were aware that participants who registered and (finally) turned up at this Free-of-Charge training on a Saturday morning, are those who truly wanted to be there to benefit from the training.

So even if the number of participants was not large, I knew that all who were present wanted to be there for their own reasons – whether it was to improve their writing or photography skills – but they would certainly benefit because their presence proved that they have the passion and commitment in their chosen field!

While professionals were involved in conducting the training, the atmosphere remained casual and friendly.

In fact, participants were encouraged to interact with the speakers, to ask questions and to get as much information as they needed from the experience.

While the speakers were making their presentations, participants were welcome to raise their hands and interrupt the talks to ask any burning questions, and the replies not only satisfied the one who asked but also benefited all participants.

Salamahafifi, better known as Fifi, discussed the Do’s and Don’ts in Citizen Journalism particularly in being responsible to check our sources of information to ascertain if it was genuine and to share relevant information, lest we caused readers to jump to the wrong conclusion.

I was the first speaker to share an Introduction to
the world of Writing and Journalism

She used examples of how we need to have background knowledge or provide it as necessary, along with the photographs before sharing articles or photographs on social media, in order to avoid creating confusion and division in our multi-cultural community.

The message was clear: While there are advantages in being a Citizen Journalist, it also comes with the responsibility in sharing news professionally on social media.

In the current age of mobile phones and social media postings, the Media Law guidelines went a long way to help participants understand how they should be responsible and ethical in their postings or risk being penalized by the law.

Balbeer Singh shared an eye-opening presentation on
the various Print and Multimedia laws in the nation

Besides providing some cases as examples, Balbeer cited the nation’s ancient but relevant laws for print media and the recent Multimedia laws to explain how these laws apply to social media users, including Facebook posts and WhatsApp chats.

This was an eye-opening revelation and by asking many questions, the participants clearly wanted to know more, and Balbeer graciously explained how the law works.

During the Photography session, I liked how Vincent shared tips and tricks about Photo Journalism and then invited the participants to go out with their mobile phones to snap “a photo which tells a story.”

Their enthusiasm for this exercise was proof that everyone fancies themselves as somewhat of “a photographer.”

Nicholas Vincent sharing tips on Photo Journalism

And when they returned to the event hall for the review session, Vincent invited each participant to show him – and the entire group – his/her mobile phone with that photograph for his comments.

From these photos, I was sure Vincent could identify the photographers who know how to apply the basic guidelines to compose “a picture that tells a thousand words” and likewise, I was sure his encouraging comments meant a great deal to each participant.

Using this range of photographs as examples, Vincent talked about composition, perspective and pointed out which photos fell into the category for Photo Journalism and which ones were Photographer’s shots.

I don’t know about the others, but this training event was a humbling experience for me because there is still so much more to see and learn from each other.

Speakers and participants at the Citizen Journalism course, Series Two

At the close of the event, the organisers encouraged the participants to put their newly acquired knowledge and skills into practice by contributing articles to Truth News, a Citizen Journalism portal at: www.cj-truthnews.com

This is an excellent avenue to challenge the participants to step out of their comfort zone and try their hand at being a citizen journalist!

The participants also provided their Feedback to that will help the organisers in planning future training events. These are some of the encouraging comments received:

“The speakers were friendly and interactive.”

“Very good content, especially the ethics in being a journalist and in posting.”

“Great event for those who are new in this field.”

“Gained a lot of insight as I’m new in this field.”

“Happy and grateful that I learnt a lot in this training.”

“Very good event, thank you so much and please have more!”

Meanwhile, a date is being arranged for Series Three of this training event, to be held in about two months’ time, so look out for the announcement in Truth News.