Best practices of polio reporting
A three-day workshop on polio reporting for 17 VOA Horn of Africa stringers working for the Polio project, was held on April 24-26.
Journalists benefited from talking to the CDC, UNICEF and WHO experts, participating in discussions and hands-on sessions. The workshop helped hone their reporting skills, offered a network of top-notch health experts, and increased their knowledge in the following areas:
- Mechanisms of polio and other disease development
- Reasons for the Polio Eradication Campaign and vaccinations for other diseases
- Use of authoritative and credible sources of information
- Tools for fact-checking and verification of information
- Personal awareness of ways to prevent polio and other diseases
By the end of the workshop, all journalists (2 from Ethiopia, 4 from Somalia, 11 from across Kenya including Nairobi, Garissa, and Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps) came up with future story ideas and plans for producing content for VOA’s polio programming. The workshop participants created a Facebook page Journalist against polio in Horn of Africa that they will use for networking, information sharing and helping each other professionally.
