The Network of Women in Media, with support from Reporters Sans Frontiers, is holding a series of five workshops to help our members explore and produce stories related to the general elections.
The registration form for all sessions will be shared in the NWMI Google Groups and Zoom meeting links will be sent to all participants 24 hours before the workshops.
Workshop 1: Elections x Gender
The session will explore how journalists can cover elections and issues through the gender lens.
Date: April 7, 2024
Trainers: The team from Behanbox, including founder Bhanupriya Rao and her colleagues Priyanka Tupe, Tanya Rana, Glenissa Pereira
Session outline
1. Understanding the Gendered Lens: The workshop will begin with an introductory session defining the “gendered lens” in political reporting and its various components.
2. Ground Reporting with Gender Focus: Participants will explore practical methods for incorporating a gendered perspective into their reporting on critical issues like agrarian distress, climate change, and MGNREGA.
3. Data & Policy Analysis: The session will explore utilising existing gender data and policies to hold the government accountable. Additionally, it will explore the purpose of elections and report on them from a broader perspective.
4. Community Engagement & Public Collaboration: The concluding session will emphasise the importance of community building and collaboration between media organisations, newsrooms, journalists, the public, and underprivileged communities during election reporting and coverage.
Workshop 2: Elections x Solutions
The session will explore how journalists can cover elections using the solutions journalism framework.
Date: April 13-14
Trainer: Swati Sanyal Tarafdar, Independent Journalist and Accredited Journalism Trainer
Session Outline
1. What is Solutions Journalism
And, most importantly, what it is not. Explained with story/example-based interactions
2. The Four Pillar Framework of SoJo
Identify and define the four pillars; Discuss and analyse the examples from earlier sessions and understand how to apply this framework to stories
3. Why is Solutions Journalism Called Hope With Teeth
Understanding through case studies how SoJo helps build trust and engagement, accuracy (and remove fake and misinformation) and accountability to hold power and politicians to account
4. How To Identify Solutions Stories In Your Beat and Newsroom
Positive Deviant and Change of Perspective; Typical Sources of Solutions Stories;
How the same data can show two completely different situations; Typical problems and potential solutions that can be covered by the participating journalists and applying SoJo to these solutions
5. The Purpose of Solutions Journalism IS Telling The Whole Story
Looping; Complicating the Narratives – inclusive and thoughtful reporting, amplifying the voices of marginalised communities; bringing all the angles into the big picture reporting
6. Work On Your Story – Group work
Based on workshop learnings, we will brainstorm to identify and shape up our own election stories and get the ball rolling on them
Workshop 3: Elections x Misinformation
The role of journalists in providing trustworthy information is essential, especially during elections. The session will cover how journalists can verify information before it reaches the public.
Date: April 20
Trainers: Ruchi Tewari, academician, researcher and trainer, Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad; and Urvashi Kapoor, Senior Editor and Assistant General Manager at Jagran New Media
Session outline
1. Building the temperament to question, have an open-minded approach, and be willing to stand corrected. The trainers shall be employing case studies which trigger questioning, real life examples where digital tools have been used to distort information. The original and distorted copies shall be presented.
2. Familiarisation of Advanced fact-checking methodologies and AI tools to identify misinformation, both textual and visual (image distortion)
3. Deep fakes shall also be discussed through real-life examples and their impact. Learning about the tools to identify viral information and deep fakes
Workshop 4: Elections x Multimedia
The session will cover how journalists can use audio and video media to enhance storytelling during elections.
Date: April 27
Trainer: Anubha Bhosle, Founder, Newsworthy
Session outline
1. Basic toolkit for reporters and editors
2. Tools to use audio and video while reporting
3. Innovative formats journalists can use and what works best for the stories/angles you have
4. Difference between short-form and long-form storytelling and the situations in which either works best
5. Tools to edit/use the information recorded for a quick turnaround
6. Stories that work better for audio and video versus print
Workshop 5: Elections x Data
With General Elections 2024 in mind, the day-long online workshop will help practising journalists access, process, analyse and present data to address the common problems faced by many journalists.
Date: May 4
Trainers: How India Lives
Session outline
1. Where can we get the data we want
Overview of data sources: electoral/candidate data including affidavit-related data; Where can we get election data from earlier years/elections; Social media data: data on ad spends on social media from Meta/Google; Data on electoral funding: Party declarations, electoral bonds data etc.
2. Using Excel/Google Sheets and other practical tools
Excel /Google Sheet basics – analysing/filtering/sorting data; Joining data using VLOOKUP, summarizing data using pivot tables etc.; Visualising data to enable insights; Presenting data to readers; Overview of PDF extraction tools; Extracting data from webpages; Tools to clean data and manage very large datasets.
