Media Foundation

Rural Media Gufa in Malepu, Dolakha, Concludes

Mar 31, 2013
Rural Media Gufa in Malepu, Dolakha, Concludes

The Rural Media Gufa, an experiential news camp for journalists concluded in Malepu village of Sunkhani-3, Dolakha on Sunday.

The naturalistic reporting camp organized between March 28 and 31, challenged journalists to live in the rural setting and report on stories of vital importance to the local community, following a rigorous approach to sourcing, verification and attribution. All forms of new technologies or platforms, such as the mobile phones, Internet and social media were banned throughout the 72 hours of the news reporting challenge.

The story ideas were brainstormed with local community participants. Of the dozen ideas presented by the community, six were selected for reporting by lot. The assignments were as follows:
• Majhi children’s education, Rajneesh Bhandari, multi-media journalist with thinkbrigade.com
• The Badi of the East, Keshav Koirala, The Himalayan Times
• Malepu village towards power independence, Arun Rai, Republica daily
• Public opinion formation on local elections, Rubina Shreshtha, Kantipur FM radio
• An exemplary farmer, Arjun Dahal, Radio Sailung, Dolakha & BBC
• Local entrepreneurship at Malepu, Bimala Thapa, Hamro Radio, Dolakha

Each of the six journalists was required to write an 800-word story on their theme. They had to use a variety of sources, including one regular, one woman, one from marginalized community, one underage (with parental consent), one local expert source, and one local public document. They had to report their stories taking a face-to-face, pen and paper only shoe-strong approach. In addition, the assignment required journalists to use at least five types of attribution styles.

Participants walked to sources, some knocking the doors of residents, others reached farms meeting people at work. Initial observations indicated challenges in finding proper documents for sourcing, inconsistencies in assertions by sources, verification, developing rapport, etc.

The event complemented the New Media Gufa event held in September (7 to 10, 2012) in Thamel, which required journalists to report and write stories solely via the Internet and social media. Stories from both camps will be compiled and comparatively analyzed, to be published later for a wider sharing.

Participants from the September New Media Gufa will participate in the Rural Gufa. The New Media Gufa 2012 event was organized between Sept 7-10 at Hotel Mandap, Thamel.

During the 72-hour news challenge assignment of September, the five tech-savvy journalists, selected through an open process of nomination through social media, remained chained to their computers, confined to a symbolic digital cave (a news lab) with a team of researchers observing their every move and activities. That procedure was repeated at the rural setting of Malepu, only that all forms of new media, including mobile phones will be banned during the reporting process.

The research team members included Dr Dharma Adhikari of the Media Foundation, and Hem Raj Kafle of Kathmandu University.

The event was organized by Media Foundation-Nepal, with support from the local Malepu community.

Event photos on Facebook

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