Monrovia – At least 15 Liberian journalists representing electronic and print media houses have converged in Monrovia to undergo a five-month mentoring program aimed at combating COVID-19 related misinformation and other forms of human rights violations in the country, especially during the course of the fight against the pandemic.
The initiative is under the auspices of the “Mobilizing Media to Fighting COVID-19 (MMFC) project” initiated by Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), a Canada-based charity organization.
JHR and its sponsors believe that trusted local journalists can play a critical role in communicating accurate public health measures and in combating what is now known as infodemic of misinformation—a thought that gave birth to the project.
The launch of the project, which officially took place on Thursday, May 6 in Monrovia, will have the story ideas of journalists selected through a Call for Pitches from across the country while liaising with two media trainers with knowledge on human rights reporting, gender sensitive writing, fact-checking among others. The two trainers had received initial trainings from JHR mentors based in South Africa and Kenya.
The two Mentors for the project are William Q. Harmon of the Daily Observer Newspaper and Gerald C. Koinyeneh of FrontPage Africa with Gloria T. Tamba of Spoon FM/TV, who is out of the country, contributing to the initiative from afar.
Speaking at the opening of the three-day training exercise, the president of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL), Charles Coffey said that there are a lot of human rights abuses ongoing in the country, especially through attacks, harassments, intimidations and coercions by powerful people.
Mr. Coffey noted that powerful people in the society do a lot to abuse the masses.
“If you were to go places across this country, especially towns and villages in our rural areas, you will identify countless human rights abuses,” he said, adding, “But let it be established here that as media practitioners, you will be unable to identify those abuses if you do not have the requisite training that would serve as an opener or guide for you. We all need to know what human rights are and what constitutes the abuse of those rights.”
He continued: “This is why this training is so much important. We want to appreciate the JHR and her collaborating partners for initiating such a program. This will be of great help to our journalists in particular and the society in general.”
The PUL president stated that the media is the watchdog and it most watch over everything, especially how the country’s resources are used to benefit the people
Though political issues are the concentration of most journalists and media houses, he said there should be some shift or consideration in looking at human rights abuses across the country.
“If a community lacks safe drinking water and there are funds allotted in the national budget for such a purpose but nothing is being done and those residents are constrained to fetch water from the creeks and rivers to drink…then their rights are being violated. We need to pursue these kinds of stories and bring them to light. Our people deserve better,” he said.
“We should also look at the people’s rights to healthcare and education. We put our leaders in power to maximize the resources we have for the public good. So they should be able to provide those basic social services to our people, but when they fail to do these they are violating the rights of the people. And as watchdogs of the society we should be there to flag out these violations.
He lauded the organizers for the training noting that it will allow the journalists to maximize their professionalism.
Also gracing the occasion, a lead human rights campaigner, Adama Dempster, called on the mentees to acquaint themselves with the various international, regional and local instruments that guarantee the rights of people. “When you do that then you have equipped yourselves adequately for robust reporting on human rights violations in the country,” he stated.
Mr. Dempster added that it is regrettable that Liberian journalists focus too much on reporting on civil and political rights and while doing so ignore the rest of the eight different international human rights treaties that have come into force.
“It is important that you draw a line as to how you are going to engage yourself in covering human rights issues. with that you will not narrow human rights reporting to just civil and political rights. That is, you will not take up most of your time following politicians.
At a time when JHR believes there is much fake news and misinformation which they termed as “infodemic”, the mentees will be capacitated to report objectively and accurately on rights issues.
FrontPageAfrica’s Desk Editor, Lennart Dodoo said the media play important role in the protection of human rights of citizens in the country serving as the voice of the people. FPA is JHR’s official implementing partner in the country.
Mr. Dodoo called on the journalists to help unearth and report the human rights abuses that are going on in the country, while urging them to be guarded by the journalistic code of ethics.
He said, “As human rights journalists, let us report accurately and objectively to ensure that governments and individuals are held accountable for their actions.”
The participants thanked JHR and its implementing partner, FrontPage Africa for the opportunities and promised to ensure the program is successfully implemented.
Meanwhile, the ‘Mobilizing Media Fighting Covid19′ project will contribute to international public health efforts to combat the spread of COVID-19 and its impact on human rights, in particular women’s and girls’ rights, across 12 countries and is funded by Global Affairs Canada. The project is also implemented in several parts of the world. In Africa, Liberia falls within Region B alongside Gambia, Ghana and Sierra Leone.
Since 2002, Journalists for Human Rights have worked around the world to train and engage local journalists, media outlets, civil society organizations and other relevant stakeholders to strengthen and improve human rights coverage in local contexts.
It has its presence in 29 countries across the world and has trained 15,650 journalists so far, reaching some 65million audience ensuring that everyone is aware of their human rights.