US Embassy helps journalists to hone ICT skills

Some 25 Journalists drawn from various media outlets in Limbe, Buea and Bamenda have updated their skills on the use of ICT tools in online journalism, during a two day workshop in Limbe from the 6 to 7 of August, 2014, organized by the U.S Embassy Yaoundé in collaboration with the Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalist (CAMASEJ).

“This workshop comes at the right time as most media organs in the country are looking at the internet as the next platform to distribute their content” Francis Zante, a participant from the Eden Newspaper said.

‘These two days have taught me a lot, the importance of story tags, Google glass, what kind of content to be distributed on which platform, some key interview techniques that we usually ignore just to name these few’ said Atia Hilarious, a reporter with the Sun Newspaper.

Opening the workshop, Timothy Lewis, Information Officer at the US Embassy in Yaoundé said ‘traditional media such as radio, television and the printing press has been significantly impacted with the arrival of new ICTs’

‘Cameroon’s media outlets are gradually integrating such tools into their operations and this trend will continue’ he continued.

The aim of the workshop he said was to equip journalist with skills and training that will help them remain competitive in a changing landscape and relevant to the growing networked audience.

According to Prof. Corey Takahashi, the main facilitator at the workshop, the internet provides a platform for both traditional and modern media, big and small media outlets and individuals to put their message to a worldwide audience. He said despite the fact that internet speed and accessibility are issues in Cameroon; that will change sooner because technology usually gets cheaper with time and not the other way round.

Prof. Takahashi said the internet is an instant platform that presents journalists and bloggers with a global audience, is not restricted by borders, is cheap, and offers so many free softwares like twitter, facebook, blogger, youtube and wordpress that gives flexibility on which way to disseminate information.

The participants during the workshop sharpened their skills on the powers of digital story telling in text, audio, video and apps forms, forms of information distribution and audience engagement, best practices from digital media companies, and various ways of low cost digital production, the use of some ICT tools like Google glass, cameras and mobile phones amongst others.

The Limbe workshop was a follow up to a similar workshop organized in Doula for journalists from Doula, Bamenda and Yaoundé.