BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN – In partnership with the ASEAN Foundation, local news organisation Scoop Media kicked off the ASEAN Youth Social Journalism Workshop at the Language and Literature Bureau on Monday.
The event brings together 20 ASEAN youth for a four-day workshop to learn the tools of social journalism, a media model that combines professional journalism, contributor and reader content.
The participants were chosen based on their submissions to a regional essay competition conducted by the ASEAN Foundation, where applicants were asked to explore the importance of reliable and transparent government in the day-to-day lives of ASEAN citizens.
During the workshop, participants will develop campaigns to bring social awareness to various issues in their respective communities, using the skills they learned during the workshop such as capturing visual and audio content, interviewing techniques, social media content marketing, analytics and engagement; and pitching stories to news organisations.
The aim of the workshop is to use social journalism as a tool to promote the ideals of fairness, equity and transparency within their communities, as well as at the regional ASEAN level.
Participants will return to their home countries to develop a media campaign raising awareness on a specific social issue in their community.
“When the ASEAN Foundation approached us about hosting this workshop in Brunei Darussalam, we were excited to have the opportunity to help foster a stronger culture of journalism among ASEAN youth, and instill an understanding of the important function journalism serves in our society — which is to make sense of the world we live in, and to understand how and why things happen,” said Ain Bandial, co-founder and editor of The Scoop.
“The way we produce journalism and engage with audiences needs to change in order to keep up with shifts in our culture. And we need to do a better job of representing a variety of issues and perspectives in the content we create to truly reflect what is happening on the ground,” she added.
The workshop is organised and implemented by the ASEAN Foundation, with support from the ASEAN Secretariat and funding through ASEAN-USAID PROSPECT, a joint project of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and U.S. State Department. Scoop Media is the host institution.
About Scoop Media:Â
Founded in September 2017, Scoop Media is a Bruneian media company that produces independent journalism, focused on telling thoughtful stories about the people, trends and issues shaping Brunei.
Within just two years, the company’s flagship platform, The Scoop, has become Brunei’s most popular news website. The Scoop also has a weekly news programme on Progresif Radio and launched a print magazine in February 2019.