BELIZEAN JOURNALISTS PARTICIPATE IN TRAINING WORKSHOPS TO FOCUS ON EFFECTIVE REPORTING

August 09, 2007

Journalists from print, radio, and television media countrywide, will participate in the second phase of training workshops focusing on effectively reporting on the environment. The workshops are being conducted by the International Center for Journalists at Loyola University in New Orleans, under the stewardship of Doctor Robert Thomas.

Doctor Robert Thomas:Director of Center for Journalists at Loyola University

“This will be our second round of environmental workshops for journalists in Belize.It’s a project at the International Center for Journalism in Washington DC and it’s funded by PACT Belize and the HOPE Foundation and now we’ve gotten some money from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in Washington DC as well.We did our first workshop in November,out in St.George’s Caye and this will be our second one held in Stann Creek.The whole concept is to educate journalists on the nuances of covering the environment.Covering the environment is a very difficult process because it’s not a single dimension.It’s not just going out saying this is this and this is that.It’s almost always helping the listener,reader,watcher to understand science,understand the process of science,understand how it affects social systems in the community and the country.The politics of it all,the economics of course,the environmental reform and it’s very multi-dimensional and very important to the well being of citizens in the country.”

Doctor Thomas commented on the scope of the workshop and highlighted who will be making presentations.

Doctor Robert Thomas:Director of Center for Journalists at Loyola University

“What we try to do at these workshops is to first of all,train journalists in the process of journalism.But that would not be enough so what we do is we pick several topics for each workshop.This time we’re going to talk about damming the Macal River,we’re going to talk about garbage and waste disposal in the country,we’re going to talk about run-off into the local rivers and streams from both urban and agricultural operations and in so doing,we’re going to give them information and then we’re going to tell them questions that a journalist should ask which are very important to making decisions.So we’ll actually give them baseline information on environmental topics,but at the same time we’re going to continually infuse,okay so now that you know that,how do you explain that to the public and how do you make it relevant,how do you put it in a context that allows the public to make decisions and demand decisions.We’re going to have Albert Roches Jr. from the Department of the Environment which is going to be talking to us.Doctor Colin Young from Galen University,Candy Gonzalez is going to talk to us about the cases of damming the river and then we’ve got Pedro Cho,a geologist who is going to talk to us about oil and gas in the country and he’ll explain to the journalists how you actually extract the product from the ground and how you handle it on the ground.”

According to Doctor Thomas, the training will see a third phase. This time, the team will focus on the coral reef.

Doctor Robert Thomas:Director of Center for Journalists at Loyola University

“We do have a third phase,a third workshop being held in late spring and that’s going to take us back out to the coral reef and the whole emphasis of that workshop will be on understanding how the coral reefs work and why they’re important to the economy,the culture and the environment of Belize.Alot of times the citizens think that if you talk about environmental things,you’re only talking about saving the environment.Well,the way we work on the environment,is that we never work on it without talking about saving the environment,saving the economy and making it robust and good for people so that they can have jobs in their way of life.And then talking about how it affects their culture.Because the culture of Belize is incredibly based on the natural resources of this country.When Belize was founded,they set aside 70% of the country as natural area ever heard of in the world and it’s obvious that Belizeans value their environment.”

Doctor Thomas is a biologist who is the Acting Director of the School of Mass Communications at Loyola University in New Orleans, U-S-A. Presenter, Dale Willman, is a veteran radio reporter, producer, and teacher who won many awards for his work in public radio in the United States. Last year, the two, along with newspaper reporter Perry Beeman, former president of the Society of Environmental Journalists, launched the program with a three-day workshop at St. George’s Caye, last year. Journalists who attended that training program, initiated the Belize Environmental Reporting Network, BERN. BERN is a local forum for sharing stories and information about environmental reporting. Doctor Thomas said the International Center for Journalists is also working on a competition and is inviting journalists to submit stories on the environment.

Doctor Robert Thomas:Director of Center for Journalists at Loyola University

“One of the important things about doing workshops is getting people better trained to do journalism coverage.It’s to figure out a way to show who’s really doing it well.And so one of the things that our project is doing is we’re sponsoring a biodiversity journalism reward program.It’s going to be a national program countrywide in Belize.Anybody who writes films or talks on radio about journalism can submit some of their pieces to be judged and sometime towards the end of 2007,we’ll have an awards ceremony in which we’ll name a first,second and third place and tell the citizens who’s really doing good writing and why.So that it can help younger reporters to learn how to do their craft better.And then we’re going to do it one more time in 2008 we’ll do another round.And then we’ll see where it goes from there.We think it’s very important if you’re going to train people that are journalist,that you have to have some kind of reward system to show who’s doing it well.”

Director of Center for Journalists at Loyola University, Doctor Robert Thomas.

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