Digital reporting on burn prevention in children
What ethical concerns should be considered when reporting about burn prevention in children? How can journalists use new media tools to inform and engage with the general public on the topic of burns, which are the third leading cause of childhood trauma?
21 journalists from nine countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and North Caucasus participated in training sessions hosted by BBG and led by the Ukrainian Google Educators Group on May 22-26, in Odessa, Ukraine.
Journalists, reporters and producers, VOA and RFE/RL stringers and affiliates, shot, edited and produced multimedia stories on burn prevention and other themes using new media tools including Google Maps, Google Scholar and Images, Splice, Adobe Clip and Quick GoPro.
Over the course of five days, journalists learned how to to record short videos using either Adobe Spark Video (iPhone) or Adobe Premier Clip (Android), how to download video about burns to Google Drive, and how to livestream. As part of the program, they visited the Odessa Burn Center to shoot interviews, record B-roll and livestream thematic video on Facebook.
They also learned how to install and create accounts for the following apps: Periscope, Zello, Slack, WiFi map, Hootsuite, and Feedly. Journalists posted their new training projects on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. A closed group Facebook account was created for all training participants and instructors to post, comment on and discuss training projects and reference training materials.
Two stories about the BBG training were produced by the training participants:
- VOA’s Russian Service posted a report by Taras Burnos, stringer in Ukraine.
- STV, the BBG affiliate in Odessa, aired a story by Elena Orlova.
Some of the training projects will be broadcast by language services.
As part of the trip, Window on America Center in Odessa, the local American space, invited BBG’s Inna Dubinsky and Franak Vyachorka to talk to Ukrainian youth about media literacy, and in particular how to be educated consumers of information in the age of “fake news”.
Graduates received BBG certificates of training completion in Odessa on May 26, 2017.