* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
A journalist is as good as his or her contact book, as goes the saying. The best ones don’t work from behind a desk but get out, get to know people, find out what their readers want to know, talk around and chase new stories. Don't they?
This, at least, was one of the ideas at the heart of a Thomson Reuters Foundation workshop for Moroccan reporters on the parliamentary reporting in Rabat in late February.
As part of a project to help build up the coverage of Morocco’s state-owned Maghreb Arabe Presse (MAP) news agency, Nicholas Phythian and I joined six of their journalists, whose current beats range from parliament to other areas like social affairs.
On the first morning, we asked, as always, what each of them wanted from the workshop. When a request came through to get out and see parliament, we put this back in their hands and said we’d love to all go if they could use their contacts to organise it.
This came together nicely when one of the attendees – who already reports from parliament - organised a visit for us on the last day.
Key questions raised during the week included “How do I get stories?” and “How do I meet people?” The answer? “Put the work in, build your network, talk around to pick up bits of information, then call around and talk to other people to verify, test what you've heard and then write your story.”
Had anyone been listening? Well yes, as we found out during a presentation throughout the parliamentary visit from El Mustapha Nassiri, Head of the National Assembly’s media relations department in the parliament. In his conversation with the journalists, the question of the use of Amazigh – the Berber language spoken in the country’s Rif valley – came up, and the fact it had recently been used on the floor of parliament in an official exchange for the first time.
One of the journalists not only latched onto this but also did the legwork of making and calling around different sources to learn the different sides and new angles of the debate. The result was an interesting article about the paradox of a language that despite being recognised as an official language in Morocco since 2011, it is still not commonly used in the Arabic-speaking parliament. This came with an informative fact-box about the issue’s background and history.
The piece, as well as being unique, was also balanced and genuinely informative on issues ranging from Moroccan society to Amazigh culture and, of course, parliament!
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