On the right side of Citizen Journalism

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.