Empowering Local Media

Internews has been working in Sri Lanka since 2005, providing information services to vulnerable communities and delivering training to both established journalists and young trainees. Internews works closely with local organisations and the Government to harness the power of media and information to help people develop a peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka.

Trincomalee Journalists master digital media

Trincomalee Journalists who have been challenged by the brutal forces of war for several decades are seeing new light and enjoying new opportunities for professional development. These opportunities are offered by the Trincomalee Media House.

The Trincomalee Journalists were exposed to modern communication techniques with the Digital Media Training conducted on  4th and 5th of September, 2010 at the Trincomalee Media House training centre.

The trainers were led by Mr. Amantha Perera, a leading journalism trainer and foreign correspondent.

Mr C.Sivarasasegaram, Manager, Trincomalee Media House elaborating on this p rogramme stated as follows:

“  It was an excellent opportunity for the local journalists to follow  this training which was  sponsored and organized by the Trincomalee Media House in collaboration with Internews.   If the journalists are to undergo   training of this caliber by themselves or individually, they will  have a spend a lot of money and time.  This type of training is not available in  the Trincomalee District and they have to go to Colombo or elsewhere”.

Mr C.Sivarasasegaram went on to say that the impact of the training could be witnessed immediately after the training.  As soon as the training was over, the journalists started to work on Twitter, Blog and Wordpress. These  channels are important to the journalists to be more professional. With this ability they  can compete with their counterparts in Colombo or internationally.  This course has  upgraded their professionalism and they are happy to avail this facilities.  Now the journalists are able to create their own  blog  sites and  are using them.

Now, many of the journalists are using twitter, flicker, wordpress, youtube and videopress.

The Trincomalee Media House staff stated that it was   an amazing improvement on the part of the journalists  since they  picked up the cyber technology within a  couple of days and are now able to manipulate.

Uploading and downloading the video, images or photographs  is made  easy through this technology.

Following the success of this initial  training,  The Trincomalee Media House IT Officer,  plans to conduct internally further training  on the same lines, to equip  all the journalists in the Trincomalee District to successfully use  modern technology.