More Journalist Workshops

A few weeks back Janet O’Connor once again joined us in Kathmandu to conduct two half-day workshops for women journalists. This time the topic was feature writing which proved to be a far more challenging course than the previous journalism basics Janet had given.

The workshops were attended by around 25 journalists from in and around Kathmandu covering a range of backgrounds including newspapers, radio, TV, magazines, freelance and student.

The first workshop covered a range of topics including ethics in journalism, differences between hard news and features, different types of introductions and their importance, the importance of structure, and the morning finished with an exercise in mind mapping the structure for a feature article.

The second workshop covered feature analysis, editing and the importance of word choice and being economical with words, and finished with some exercises and discussion on interviews. This last part raised a lot of interest and questions as interviewing is something that many in the group found difficult. Janet had plenty of practical suggestions for helping them to better prepare for and get the most out of their interviews.

All of the topics covered in the workshop really challenged the attendees as many of them had little formal training, instead learning 'on the job'. Also, the general standard of feature writing in Nepal is not high and so it was a great help for the participants to be exposed to examples from international publications as well as having the opportunity to discuss their ideas and raise questions with an experienced journalist.

We must thank Janet profusely for all of her hard work in putting the course together as well as travelling all the way to Kathmandu to share it with us!