* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
In March 2014 Thomson Reuters Foundation concluded a two-year program in partnership with the British government to train journalists and improve citizens’ access to accurate information in the Turks and Caicos Islands, which were undergoing a massive political and economic crisis.
In 2008, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office produced a report reviewing the crisis of political and economic governance in the Turks and Caicos, a British Overseas Territory. The report led to the suspension of self-government in 2009 and the imposition of direct rule by the British government, which embarked on an anti-corruption investigation of senior government figures and problems in the islands’ economy.
The British government also introduced a rescue package in the form of a loan guarantee of £160m over five years to the Turks and Caicos, ending in 2016.
The British government started development processes in several areas, including drafting and approving a new constitution. Instituting programmes to strengthen media and journalism standards was also on the agenda in order to improve the capacity of journalists in the islands.
Thomson Reuters Foundation played a crucial role in assisting the British government to achieve this objective. In early 2012, the Foundation proposed a two-year journalism project to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with the aim of improving journalism and reporting skills of the journalists in the Turks and Caicos with the goal of providing transparent, accurate and factual news to the public.
In June 2012, in order to assess the media needs in the islands, the Foundation conducted a scoping visit where it established three core areas to be addressed: the creation of a journalism association, the training of government officials and spokespeople to improve their communications skills and the practical training of journalists to improve their reporting skills.
The first priority was creation of a journalism association which was positively encouraged by media outlets and professionals in the islands at the time. This included establishment of a Code of Ethics to protect the rights of journalists as well as considering processes for accreditation, education and setting standards in journalism.
However, this proved to be more challenging than expected as representatives of local media preferred to design and implement their own code of ethics as opposed to adopting one designed by Thomson Reuters Foundation and approved by the British government. As a result, this aspect of the programme was put on hold.
Secondly, there was a unanimous enthusiasm from authorities in the islands, mainly government spokespeople and permanent secretaries, to improve their media skills in order to understand the needs of media and communicate with them more effectively. This would help authorities to improve the flow of information to the public via the media in a more efficient way. Throughout the first year of this project, we trained 12 permanent secretaries and officials.
The third focus area was to provide targeted training to journalists in the islands. We ran a total of five courses on business and financial reporting, good governance, parliamentary elections and court reporting within this period.
Fresh elections were held in the islands in November 2012, after which the British government restored home rule in the Turks and Caicos. Prior to the elections, the Foundation trained journalists in an Elections reporting course in which they learned about the democratic process behind a fair election and the requirements of balanced and accurate reporting. Through a curriculum tailored to the election landscape in the Turks and Caicos, journalists learned about planning coverage, election night reporting and handling the results and the aftermath of elections.
In April 2013, thirteen high profile political figures in the islands, including four former Ministers of the previous government charged with corruption and other serious criminal offences, appeared before the court. To prepare journalists to cover these trials, the Foundation conducted a court reporting course in February 2013 that explained the workings of the justice system, the definition of legal terms including defamation and contempt, what constitutes a fair trial and how to cover it.
In the year after the elections and once the new government was established, the Foundation ran a series of parliamentary reporting, financial and business reporting and good governance courses to define common forms of corruption and the media commitment to addressing them, providing the participating journalists with tools on how to scrutinise the government on expenditures and hold it to account.
One of the main challenges of this project was to encourage the participants to attend the workshops. Journalists from a variety of media platforms including television, radio, print and online media attended all our workshops. But due to the pressures of small staffs and logistical constraints, a blended approach had to be implemented. Therefore, we applied a more flexible approach of training hours for the participants, including evening and weekend sessions to help the participants meet their day-to-day responsibilities. In the second year, we also ran some sessions twice in one day – morning and afternoon – to meet the needs of the participants.
Although this was only a two- year project which came to an end in March 2014, it was a great opportunity to teach journalists in the Turks and Caicos about journalism standards and accurate reporting. Considering the changes the island is going through both economically and politically, the public will benefit from access to information through a more transparent and unbiased media environment.
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