SOUTHERN PROVINCE HUYE — Media experts have advised local Rwandan journalists to widen their news coverage of events happening in the country. Addressing journalists who were attending a five-day training organised by the Rwanda Initiative, the experts said the journalists should give voice to ordinary people in their stories. The training was geared at building their reporting skills. Over 40 Rwandan journalists are attending the conference in Butare since Monday. “Tell stories that make a difference,” Allan Thompson, journalism professor at Carleton University in Canada told the participants, to get stories on real issues affecting the country and to help the society have a “conversation with itself”. He urged them to talk to ordinary people. Thompson is the founder of the Rwanda Initiative, a partnership between Carleton’s School of Journalism and Communication and its counterpart at the National University of Rwanda. While he admitted that there is no international definition of journalism, he insisted that the craft is about telling stories for a purpose and helping to channel the conversation between members of the society. He criticized many Rwandan journalists for focussing on event-based stories described as a top down kind of communication. “Tell stories that make a difference,” he told journalists drawn from different media outlets in the country.Louise Mushikiwabo, the Minister of Information urged the journalists to widen their news sources beyond meetings held by officials, in towns. Noting that upcountry stories reflect a “national life” she urged participants to report about things happening in rural areas. “We want to know stories about people in the country, not just in Kigali. Rwanda has amazing stories to tell,” she said.The minister who is new in cabinet worked as a public relations consultant and speaker in Washington, D.C, USA, before returning to Rwanda. She urged the journalists to work professionally to redeem the journalism profession in Rwanda, which is tainted by bad history. “Let us see how we can move our story telling to the professional level of journalism,” she said. Media experts and journalists from Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, South-Africa, Cameroon, and Canada are in Butare to provide a hands-on-training for Rwandan journalists in print, radio, and television. The Rwanda Initiative has been sending Canadian journalists to teach journalism and work with media houses in Rwanda and Canadian students to do their internships with Rwandan media organizations since 2006. It has also supported some Rwandans to travel to Canada for studies and journalism internships. Its training of Rwandan journalists looks relevant in a country where every one admits that continued training is crucial for Rwandan media practitioners. “It is obvious that our journalists are both poor and unprofessional,” said third-year journalism student Aloys Rukizangabo. “The government should provide them with more and more training.” Rukizangabo also said that government needs to find ways to put some significant money in the media sector to help journalists professionally carry out their job. Ends
