Machakos County based Hivisasa writers were on Saturday treated to a rare training opportunity in Machakos town.
The workshop organized by the county's editor MAUGO OWITI and supported by Hivisasa's secretariat was conducted at Lauh Hotel, a four Star hotel within the town's central business district (CBD).
The citizen journalists were trained on various topics including; What news is, how to generate quality news stories, differences between news and other kinds of writings such as opinions, features, including Random stories.
How to come up with good headlines, importance of submitting stories from writer's county of locality, how to identify stories which trend for good traffic, tips on pitching for controversial stories, sourcing for news, how to create reliable and credible contacts, Tips on 5Ws + H, Importance and strategies of sharing published stories on multiples of social media platforms, qualities of a good writer, basic communication and networking skills including how to create professional relationships with news sources were also covered.
The training was conducted by the organization's editor Maugo Owiti who urged writers to be availing themselves during such training to get equipped with ideas on how to carry out their work in the field.
Owiti said most of the media training institutions across the country concentrate on equipping students with more theory than practicals which poses as a challenge while job seeking after they graduate from communication and journalism classes.
He advised the writers to equally consider generating positive, success and development stories from Machakos and National Governments as opposed to trends of dwelling on only negative ones.
Hivisasa has broken the record since there is no mainstream media which has ever trained it's reporters located at the county levels apart from organizations like; Kenya Correspond Association and Media Council of Kenya [MCK].
In an interview with some of those who attended the workshop, they reckoned that having their bosses train them on how to carry out credible work was a show of utmost concern.
"This is an opportunity to fill ourselves with as much cognizance as possible," Eunice Gesare, Hivisasa Machakos based writer said.
Gesare urged other media institutions to emulate Hivisasa and train their county reporters so as to practice ethical and responsible journalism during their day to day work.
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