Media Foundation 360 team visited Multan for consultative meetings with Multan Press Club officials on August 30, 2019, under the project “Promoting Peace and Harmony through Media”. The team carried out two sessions with the local journalists at the Multan Press Club venue. The meetings provided significant contextual opportunities to share the basic tenets of MF360’s capacity-building project and to gauge its effectiveness in promoting a sustainable society through constructive journalism.The journalists were eager to share their interests and idea. They actively related professional instances pertaining to their:
- Field experiences,
- Challenges and limitations and,
- Problems while reporting.
MF360’s initiative was actively welcomed and valued by the participants. The situation, however, became challenging for the MF360 team, when a majority, more than 90 percent, of the participants expressed their eagerness to join the training.
The session in the press club was followed by a productive meeting with the Controller News “Rohi TV”, Jamshed Rizwani. Rizwani is a senior journalist and is considered an icon of Multan journalism. He is, fortunately, a valuable part of our project in the capacity of a mentor.
MF360 team travelled to Shujabad, a tehsil of Multan, 35KM from the district Multan, to meet local journalists. These journalists face tough conditions and lack of mentorship and training to cover any conflict, be it religious festivities and /or any complex situation triggered by hate speech or sectarian violence.
During our session, the MF360 team:
- Introduced the basic tenets of its program.
- Invited the journalists to join the team in the journey to promote peace and harmony through constructive journalism.
- Made selection of candidates to participate in the training.
Media Foundation 360 was able to enlist journalists and media practitioners from a cross-section of media from the South Punjab region. The percentage of female journalist and blogger and Vlogger candidates was also encouraging for the participation upwards of 25 percent.
