April 6, 2023

By Nathania John & Jeyanthi R.
Communications Intern & Additional Programme Coordinator – People & Nature Collectives

The Radio Kotagiri team at Keystone had the opportunity to conduct a news reporting workshop on April 6 on the Keystone campus in Kotagiri. The workshop was held for the Nilgiri Seemai Sudhi volunteers and teaching fellows of the Tribal Youth Leadership programme. 

Seemai Sudhi is a local newsletter run fully by passionate volunteers who have taught themselves to collect news and transform them into concise articles that are engaging and easily readable. The training was essentially held to enhance writing abilities and journalism skills, while also making the attendees reflect on their own writing styles and areas of self-improvement.  They were pushed to think outside of the box and unlearn limiting writing techniques. 

The discussions were led by Velayudhum, an experienced senior journalist of Kadhai Vattam, a publishing company based in Coimbatore. He had the chance to encourage these budding journalists to write impactful stories that are authentic, raw, and eye-opening for readers. He helped them understand the difference between reporting inaccurate, trivial, and unengaging news versus appealing, accurate and thought-provoking articles. The workshop addressed writing styles and their fundamentals, journalistic jargon, and ethically respectful vocabulary necessary to report effectively. 

The trainees from the youth leadership development programme have been teaching individuals from different communities the concept of self-profiling (an exercise that encourages local communities to describe themselves, their history, ecology and other aspects that define who they are and how they wish to be perceived), while also learning how to develop self-profiling skills subjective to themselves. Velyanudhum catered to their specialization by diving deeper into self-profiling basics. 

Participants were also encouraged to share their struggles. One of the concerns vocalised were the introductory and conclusory aspects of an article. They were therefore taught how to build strong introductions and argumentatively sound conclusions. Velayudhum selected random pieces of writing written by the participants and used them as case studies, while dissecting writing principles out of them. Overall the workshop was designed to bring out the holistic journalist in each trainee, and instilled in the volunteers a drive to impact people with their stories.