Burkina Faso newspapers join the Faso Media project
Related project
Faso MediaFive editors-in-chief, five sub-editors and nine reporters recently received training under the Faso Media project, in editorial management and reportage respectively.
The project was launched in February 2015 with a discussion seminar on "What are the new relations between citizens, the media and politicians?" This was attended by journalists and managers from Burkina Faso's printed and online press, and it was the same groups who benefited from the two training sessions held between 11 and 23 May.
The managers and sub-editors (or "proofreaders" as they are called in Burkina Faso) had expressed a desire to improve their organisations and to work on "political" subject angles. These were thus the objectives of CFI expert Eric le Braz and Burkinian trainer Souleymane Ouattara, who led an initial "editorial management" session from 11-16 May for ten editors and sub-editors from five print newspapers.
The following week's course on "reportage and following political campaigns", attended by nine journalists from the printed and online press, was more practical and included on-the-ground reporting on current news events. "Before the training course, we were only using two ways to shoot news items. Now we know there are fifty of them, and we expect to be using them all!" affirmed Hyacinthe Sanou from L'Observateur Paalga at the end of the workshop.
In-house coaching sessions are currently being held by Eric le Braz at the eight newspapers benefiting from the project. These sessions complement the centralised training courses and enable editorial teams to be given advice and support on specific points on a one-to-one basis.
