Activity Details (ID# 20595)

Activity Synopsis

This two day workshop was discussed and presented to Public Broadcasting of Georgia. It was developed by Nathalie Labourdette and delivered by Eric May for participants from Public Broadcasting of Georgia in Tbilissi.

The objective was to give Public Broadcasting of Georgia executives and journalists clear standards for covering elections, specifically the presidential election scheduled for January 2008. The two day workshop was delivered at Public Broadcasting of Georgia.
 

It was a two-day workshop comprising of seven modules: Understanding the audience, Visual storytelling, Press conferences, News graphics, Preparing for the election, Creative election coverage and election night coverage.

The organization of this workshop was excellent. The support provided by International department was efficient: all our requests were met in a timely manner, all material was translated, the technical support was good, the interpretation was professional, all participants were there on time and fully dedicated to the training programme.
The venue itself was limited because of one large conference table, and the facilities of GPB are outdated and crumbling.

Eric May was invited for dinner with Georgian Public television Director General, Mrs Tamar KINTSURASHVILI which shows respect and inertest for our work.

Most participants were journalists with 1-3 years experience at GPB. Two producers of political talk show programs also attended. None of the participants had knowledge of English, and consecutive translation was provided by the international relations department.

On day 1, there were group discussion about perceptions audience has about television news and about GPB coverage: this revealed a good understanding of limitations of television medium and audience attention. Then practical exercises took place on the review of previous night’s GPB news. The same political story covered by two different European stations was discussed for visual content followed by practical exercises from Eurovision Contact Toolkit. In module 3, the problematic visual nature of press conferences was presented followed by a practical exercise where participants held a “news conference” and teams looked for visual signs to express what was happening. Examples of various types of news graphics were followed by practical exercises – participants created their own graphics on flip chart paper using translated scenarios from Georgian presidential election campaign

On Day 2 , participants started with the module on Preparing for the election. They identified 1) key voter issues, 2) major political parties and their candidates, 3) connections between political parties and issues important to voters, 4) identifying likely independent experts for election coverage. Then, they worked on election coverage: participants created their own short “newscasts”, performed for the rest of the group, on one of three topics: “explaining the election process”; “explaining the role of the president, the parliament, and the deputies”, and “explaining the role of the government, the courts, the news media, and the public in an election”. Finally, principles for organizing election night coverage were illustrated with examples of election coverage from other EBU member stations; discussion of principles in “GPB toolkit (translated handout)”
 

Workshop results (what worked, what didn't and why?):

All participants were interested and many expressed the desire that people higher in authority at GPB news could have attended.

100% journalists found the workshop completely or very useful. It completely or mostly met the expectations of 100 % of the participants. What was most valuable :

- Mr. Eric's experience, international approach in covering News, press conferences and election. The foreign modern standards was also very important.
- I liked most the visual part and technologies of building a story
- How to edit a story in a right way
- I learned some new ways of story telling.
- Very interesting the structure of the election night, its agenda and other components
- Election coverage, visual storytelling, press conference coverage
- Graphics, different TV work.

They liked the method used by the trainer:
- Very, very high level of professionalism. Very interesting, fantastic manner of delivering information. Thank you.
- The trainer is great. Very professional, skilful, excellent interpersonal skills.

For more details, see the report.
 

Editors, Editors-in-chief & Journalists from Public Broadcasting of Georgia