Ha Noi, June 27, 2023, Wildlife Conservation Society - Viet Nam Program (WCS Viet Nam) in collaboration with Faculty of Broadcasting (FoB), Academy of Journalism and Communication (AJC) organized a closing workshop of the mentorship program for journalism students “Stories on the go - Season 2”. This workshop was to review the WCS and FoB’s journey in building knowledge and skills of journalism students in reporting the issues related to combating wildlife trafficking (CWT).
Mentees, mentors and advisors participating in the program, Ha Noi, June 2023
Starting in November 2022, with more than seventy applications, eighteen outstanding journalism students from AJC and University of Science, Hue University were selected to become mentees of the program. Three experienced journalists, including Nguyen Truong Son - VTV24, Hoang Van Chien - Dan Viet newspaper and Nguyen Tran Anh Thu - VOV2 were the mentors; while the lecturers from FoB, AJC, and Faculty of Journalism and Communication, University of Science, Hue University were the advisor of the program.
The mentorship program started with a 3-days training course in Ninh Binh to provide mentees with knowledge and skills of investigative journalism, different types of modern journalism and their applications in topic research and development of journalism products related to the illegal wildlife trade issue. Eighteen mentees were then divided into five teams who were coached and mentored by three experienced journalists to initially approach and develop topics related to CWT.
After the training course, WCS continued to organize a series of coffee talks to provide additional knowledge for mentees to work on CWT topics, including Viet Nam's legal framework related to wildlife protection, species identification skills, and reporting wildlife violations.
With the hands-on coaching of the three journalists, after seven months, five teams completed thirteen journalism products on the topic of wildlife protection. Highlighted products are a series of articles on the situation of publicly trading and advertising turtles, a series of articles on advertising otter fur in fashion stores in Ha Noi, and some pioneers in wildlife protection in Thua Thien Hue, reportages on the trapping of wild animals in Son Tra peninsula... which were published on media channels including VTV1, Dan Viet Newspaper, Natural Resources and Environment Newspaper, VOV... Not only diverse in themes and types, the mentees' products have reflected many other aspects of the illegal wildlife trade, such as analysis of legal loopholes, the management of wildlife by the authorities…
Although these are their very first experiences, the knowledge, skills and lessons learned from journalists and journalism lecturers will be valuable to the mentees of the “Stories on the go - Season 2” on their career path of becoming young journalists in the future and keep contributing to wildlife protection efforts.
Group discussion of ideas for the next season, Ha Noi, June 2023
This activity is carried out within the framework of the program "Improving the effectiveness of multi-sectoral collaboration in combating illegal wildlife trade from Africa to and within Viet Nam" implemented by the German Organization for Development Cooperation (GIZ). represents the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), combining expertise and resources from five Federal ministries Germany, international organizations and NGOs.