A last-minute tour of the newsrooms of Britain’s Independent Television News provided welcome relief from the complexities of Zambian elections for participants at a Writing International News workshop in London in September.
The workshop, at Reuters headquarters in Canary Wharf, refreshed basic journalistic tools, covered issues such as sourcing and interview techniques and allowed those involved to experiment with their writing styles through exercises and feedback.
The journalists, from Cambodia, Brazil, Poland, Armenia, Peru, Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Nepal, Romania, Italy and Syria, spent two weeks honing their skills under the guidance of Reuters Foundation trainers Peter Gregson and Paul Iredale.
They were given a comprehensive introduction to working online by Gary Herman, while Quentin Webb of Reuters took them through the basics of economic reporting. Reuters TV’s Lloyd Watson discussed his side of the business, and Mike Peacock gave a rundown of the complexities and possible fall-out of the sub prime crisis.
Tim Large and Mark Snelling of the Foundation’s Alertnet team showed the group the journalistic tools now in place on the disaster relief website and took them through an exercise on covering aid stories.
One of the participants, Zbigniew Bartus , the editor in chief of the Polish daily Dziennik Polski, won his place on the workshop as part of a journalism prize. He seemed to enjoy himself and will be coming back for the rest of the prize, a place on a Writing Business News workshop, in October.
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