EYD2015: Media4Development

"You should take your western eyeglasses off!"

It was was probably one of the most important messages which could be heard during the seminar Media4Development: Reporting World News. The seminar aiming at young journalists took place in Helsinki, was organised by our local project partner VIKES. Participants from five countries (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Czechia and Slovakia) participated, including three journalists from three Slovak media outlets.

The general aim of the seminar was to bring more understanding into reporting on developing world. In other words - how to avoid our common biases, stereotypes or even prejudices in reporting - approaches which, if not avoided, construct a distorted image of reality of the reported world. Apart of that they got more into writing on such thematic issues as Sustainable Development Goals, climate change, humanitarian crises, etc.

Journalists from Slovakia - Katarina Kovacova from daily Pravda, Diana Burgerová from press agency SITA and Rudolf Sivy from the online newsportal Aktuality.sk have attended. As a follow-up of the seminar they will travel (within project Media4development) for immersion visits to Nepal and Cuba, to collect stories, which they will later bring to Slovak audience.

However, two outputs were already published also from their Finnish visit. Diana Burgerová had published her interview with Maija Liikkanen, who is running a specialised newspaper section in the largest serious newspaper in Finland - Helsingin Sanomat - aimed at special audience - kids. They can read about issues like climate change or migration in the way they can easily understand. You can read more here in the article named O daňových podvodoch a terorizme si vo Fínsku čítajú v novinách aj deti.

The second output by Rudolf Sivy is an interview with Amie Ferris-Rotman. She is a British journalist who has, apart from many other issues, interviewed Taliban fighter directly in his home environment in Afghanistan. You can read her story in the article named Príbeh odvážnej novinárky: vyspovedala Taliban, v Rusku ju odpočúvali.