From our Staff Reporter
DIBRUGARH, Feb 25: The concept of citizen journalism was the chief workshop of a workshop held here yesterday by Assam Times and Mahiti, a social entrepreneur group from Bangalore, with logistics support by North East Journalists’ Association (NEJA).
Lingraj G of Mahiti said that events in remote areas often go unnoticed, as it is not always possible for journalists to cover them. However, local people can step in and hold in the dissemination of the news, he added. The whole idea behind the idea of citizen journalism is to engage the common people in bringing to focus these incidents or developments. The use of mobile cameras to record events and uploading them on websites as well as writing blogs came up for discussion during the workshop. The effort of Mahiti has simplified editing of visuals and sounds on computer so that anyone can use it.
Assam Times and Mahiti have been organizing similar workshops at various places in the State like Silapathar, Silchar, Doomdooma, Nazira, Namrup, Duliajan, Digboi and Dhubri. In the next stage, selected persons from these workshops will be given specialized training in journalism, informed Babul Gogoi of Assam Times. The programme will be taken up in other Northeastern States as well.
Vishnu Kumar of Mahiti and Anup Arandhara of NEJA were also present during the workshop.