Staying on the right side of the law in writing, photography and
publishing in print or digital form – this is what the organisers of Youth
Truth News, a Citizen Journalism training – aimed to share with the participants.
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| Opening address at the Third edition of Youth Truth News - Basic Citizen Journalism Course held in October 2019 |
The third edition in this series of training events
was recently held at Iskandar Space within Affiniti Medini, Iskandar Puteri.
Organized by The Iskandarian, the official
newspapers of Iskandar Malaysia, this series of public training events was a
community effort, provided to participants Free-of-Charge.
The previous two editions entitled, Youth Truth News – Basic Citizen Journalism
Course were held in June
2019 and August 2019.
In October 2019, the third and final event in this series
was organised with fellow speakers to discuss 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).
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| My Introduction to the World of Writing and Journalism |
The session
on the topic of Photography was facilitated
by professional photographer, Vishnu Dev of Reel Studio.
In this training event, participants would learn the
basic guidelines, tips and ethics in writing and posting words and photographs
in print, while my presentation Introduction to the World of Writing and
Journalism, aimed to motivate and inspire budding writers.
From Series One and Two events, the organisers and
speakers were aware that participants who registered and (finally) turned up at
this Free-of-Charge training on a Saturday morning, will be those who truly
wanted to benefit from the training.
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| Active participation invited from participants in the Journalism module |
This time around, the number of participants was even
smaller but all who were present wanted to be there for their own reasons – to
improve their writing or photography skills – and they certainly benefited from
our time together.
The smaller number of participants had its advantages,
particularly in more active participation and more personalized discussions to get
answers to their questions.
One of
the lessons shared was clear: While there are advantages in being a Citizen
Journalist, it also comes with the responsibility in sharing news
professionally on social media.
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| Balbeer Singh discussing the Do's and Don'ts in Media Law |
The Media Law guidelines helped participants to understand
that they must be responsible and ethical in their postings or risk being
penalized by the law.
On the other side of the coin, it was reassuring to
learn that writers and bloggers are also protected by the law.
This was clarified by Balbeer in a discussion on a
current issue where a blogger’s reputation was being damaged by libelous comments
in a Facebook post and how the blogger has the law on his side to defend himself
from the offence.
Now everyone owned smart-phones with sophisticated
cameras and probably fancy themselves as pretty good photographers, so in the
Photography module, Vishnu made comparisons between the DSLR camera and
smart-phone and shared tips and tricks by showing samples of photos to
illustrate various ways to capture good shots.
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| Vishnu Dev sharing tips and tricks in capturing good shots |
To encourage the participants to put their newly acquired
knowledge and skills into practice, they were invited to contribute articles
with photos to Truth News, a Citizen Journalism portal at: www.cj-truthnews.com
This will give budding writers and photographers an
avenue to see their work published and experience the thrill of reading their
byline in a digital format!
The end of the Third edition brought this series of training
events to a fitting close where everyone came away with some eye-opening, new
and beneficial knowledge, skills and responsibilities about being a Citizen
Journalist.
Thank you, The Iskandarian for organizing this series
of community events and letting me be a part of it.
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