From journalism training classes

The author, journalist Nguyen Nghia (second and third from left) and students at the journalism training class in Cat Tien

TRAINING CLASS AFTER THE PANDEMIC

In November 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic had just passed, I, along with a colleague in the agency - journalist Nguyen Nghia and journalist Van Toa - Chairman of the Lam Dong Provincial Journalists Association, went to Cat Tien district (now Da Huoai district) to train in writing news and articles posted on the district's electronic information page for officials working in propaganda in the district. The class lasted for 2 days.

During my years as a journalist, I have taught many training courses like this for departments, branches, and units of the province as well as districts and cities in the province. But the training course in Cat Tien at that time was very special. Especially because it was the first trip to the district after the long days of social distancing. At that time, there were no passenger buses, my colleagues and I went with the private car of journalist Van Toa, and when we went to Madaguoi, we were stopped for Covid testing. Right at the beginning of Cat Tien district at that time, there was a checkpoint, and we had to have an "order" from the district to enter.

Even now, when writing about that trip, I still remember myself as a bird released from its cage, breathing in the fresh air after many months of being cooped up indoors. The road and the scenery on both sides of the road were still the same as when I was on a business trip to the district in previous years, but I was still absorbed in looking at both sides of the road as if it was the first time I had gone, to see if the people, houses, and scenery had changed after the long months of the pandemic.

And the training class was very crowded and fun. After a long period of social isolation, everyone was very happy to see each other, some worked in the district, some in the commune, meeting each other, everyone told stories about the epidemic, competing to speak in class. Being able to communicate, talk, greet each other at that time was only by touching elbows, not shaking hands, all gave me the feeling of being reborn after the gloomy days of the pandemic. The class had a list of students but everyone was wearing a mask, now meeting again, I probably wouldn't know who was who.

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Every year, Lam Dong Newspaper often receives official dispatches from agencies, departments, branches as well as districts and cities of the province requesting to send people to talk about modern journalism or to train cadres, civil servants and public employees of their agencies and units on the skills of writing news, articles, and taking photos for use in propaganda work, writing news and articles for electronic information pages.

The Provincial Journalists Association also coordinates with the Lam Dong Newspaper Association every year to organize short-term journalism training courses for provincial and district agencies, departments and branches. As the Deputy Secretary of the Association in charge of professional work, and also a journalism lecturer at Da Lat University, I am often assigned by the agency to train these training courses.

Normally, journalism training courses are usually held for about 1-2 days, but there are one-week courses organized by the Lam Dong Department of Information and Communications (now the Lam Dong Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism) in the summer. Many of the students in these training courses work in management, in charge of editing news and articles for the electronic information pages of agencies and units, and are in great need of editing knowledge. However, most of the students are those who directly write news and articles for the electronic information pages of their units or districts and cities, and are sent by agencies and units to participate, so they are in great need of knowledge about journalism as well as experience in handling news and articles in practice.

The task of this training instructor is to select a sufficient amount of journalism knowledge in a limited amount of time, provide knowledge appropriate to the trainees' level, and distribute a reasonable amount of knowledge during training hours so that trainees can absorb it in the best way.

In the training, I focused mainly on basic journalism knowledge such as current types of journalism, what is news, what is an article, current types of articles in the press, press photos, editing work, and an overview of journalism ethics. Along with journalism knowledge, I also focused a lot on skills, especially writing instructions.

One important thing is to share experiences in journalism, in breaking news, conference news, how to discover topics, how to interview ordinary people as well as leaders and celebrities, for example.

During many years of training for these classes, I have noticed that many students have improved the quality of their writing. The news is concise, full of information, in a modern style, so it is easier to edit; the images for the news and articles are much better, without basic errors. Many students have also promptly discovered and written about typical examples, good people, good deeds at the grassroots level. This means that the training classes have been effective, agencies, departments, branches, and organizations have more human resources to do information and propaganda work, serve administrative reform, and have more sources of information and better articles for their agencies' and units' websites.

And even Lam Dong Newspaper later had more collaborators from the grassroots to enrich the amount of news and articles. In practice, in recent years, Lam Dong Newspaper has had more collaborators from the grassroots who were those who attended these training courses and then sent articles to collaborate with Lam Dong Newspaper.

Source: https://baolamdong.vn/xa-hoi/202506/tu-nhung-lop-tap-huan-bao-chi-eef2f0f/