Monrovia – Over 15 writers of the Sports Writers Association of Liberia (SWAL) have benefited from an intensive training on Basketball reporting.
Report by Macaulay Sombai [email protected] 0023177721742
The training that was conducted by Basketball Association, focused on the role of the media in sport reporting, the laws of basketball and the rules governing the second most popular sport in the country.
Speaking at the capacity-building training, the Technical Chairman of LBA, Yanqueh Borsay, called on members of SWAL to make more researches on the game, if they are to be counted among the best sports writers of Liberia and the world.
Borsay, who spoke on the importance of the media role in basketball development, emphasized that the media is important in the dissemination of information.
“SWAL members are very important for the progress of basketball development and if the LBA fails to work, definitely basketball will not develop,” Borsay said.
According to him, as sports writers, they must first know the type of sport that they are about to report on. “If you want to write on basketball and you lack the knowledge of the game, you won’t be able to clearly write a story that will help the public to know what is going on in that particular sporting arena,” he added.
“To be a basketball sport writer, you have to know the rules of the game and make it your passion because if you don’t like the game you can’t give detail reports of it. So to make your writing and reporting better, you need to get yourself into the game,” Mr. Borsay advised.
The Chief referee of LBA, Solomon Johnson, who spoke on the rules of basketball, emphasized the importance of rules.
Johnson explained that knowing the rules of the game as sports journalists helps educate fans, who lack the knowledge of the rules.
For his part, the LBA president, T. Rufus Anderson, described the workshop as one of the best ways for his association to work along with SWAL.
“There is no way that we can manage or execute sports in the absent of the media; we must work together because is the only way that the public gets to know what we do and why we do what we do. It is important for us because if we don’t come together to get the information that we need, we will most likely publish stories that are either not true or harm the organization.”
For SWAL president Roland Mulbah, the training for his members was first of its kind. He assured LBA that basketball will be covered well by his members. The SWAL president hoped other federations can follow the good example of LBA.