The human rights are a subject that necessitates considerable fact-finding efforts and the representatives of the media should be continuously trained in this regard, said experts of Media Center who assessed journalistic articles centering on human rights. According to the expert appraisals, the human rights are treated in the Moldovan media only tangentially even if this issue is vital for developing a democratic society, IPN reports.
The project “Freedom of expression in Moldova: increasing journalists’ capacity to promote human rights” was implemented by Media Center in partnership with HomoDiversus with the aim of improving the skills of mass media representatives in the promotion of human rights at community level. Twelve press articles on the human rights were assessed as part of the project.
“Our goal was to compare the quality of journalistic articles published before the start of the project and articles written after training. The subject of the articles was left to the discretion of journalists. We assessed 12 published press articles. We hope that owing to our project, after the training of journalists, we will identity changes in the quality of articles, as regards the style of writing and the treated subjects. Among the main quality indicators for us were the treating of the human rights issue and inclusion of opinions of human rights experts in the articles. The assessment results show that over half of the participating journalists managed to correctly address human rights issues. Two of the participants got “good” and “very good”,” human rights expert Mihaela Ajder stated in a news conference hosted by IPN.
“This is the fourth project implemented by Media Center in partnership with HomoDiversus, which refers to the development of high-quality journalism, improvement of journalism skills and promotion of human rights through the mass media. At the start of next year, we will conduct a new assessment of press articles so as to make a comparative analysis,” said Media Center head Luiza Doroshenko.
The project brings together journalists form different regions of the country, including the Transnistrian region, ATU Gagauzia, districts of central and northern Moldova.
“This analysis showed once again how important it is to improve the skills of journalists in the treatment of subjects related to human rights. Many of the news items or articles touch the human rights only tangentially, but the journalists not always treat this theme through the angle of human rights and they do not develop the issue appropriately. That’s why the training courses and seminars are a very important instrument that should be taken into account. In this regard, we staged training courses, thematic webinars with the purpose of improving the skills of journalists,” said the head of HomoDiversus Center Vitalie Popov.
The project “Freedom of expression in Moldova: increasing journalists’ capacity to promote human rights” consists of two stages – training of journalists and writing of press articles by using the knowledge acquired with the support of experts. The articles producers as part of the project are published in the national press and posted also on www.mediacenter.md
