By: Mama A. Touray
Twenty Journalists from various media outlets have earlier this week begun a three-week capacity enhancement training in court reporting.
The training, bankrolled by USAID and organized by Freedom House in collaboration with the Gambia Press Union (GPU) and the Judiciary, is in progress at the Justice Training Institute in Banjul.
According to the President of GPU, Muhammed S. Bah, the motivation for rolling out the three-week capacity nourishment training stemmed from the union’s realization of massive growth in the number of journalists, who report from the various courts.
As he addressed participants at the opening ceremony of the program, the GPU President said the objective of gathering court reporters for three weeks is to help sharpen their tools when it comes to reporting on court proceedings.
Representative of Freedom House cumadvocacy specialist Alagie S. Nyang said thetraining is a component of their two-pronged US government-funded five-year project dubbedPromoting Rights and Justice in The Gambia. The project, he went on, focuses on improving the capacity of civil society, media, and judicature.
Funded through USAID, the idea behind the project is to support and accompany Gambians through the transitional justice phase as The Gambia journeys towards recovery from its brutal past.
Also speaking at the ceremony, Deputy Judicial Secretary of the Judiciary, Dawda Sowe, acknowledged that the training is well-timed and relevant.
He highlighted the need for journalists to be skilled in the art, adding that journalism is a skill. He equally stressed the need for journalists to always aspire to be knowledgeable in their areas of interest.
The deputy judicial secretary pointed out that lots of legal jargon are used in courts and therefore, urged court reporters to make themselves au fait with the specialized language as ignorance of them, he advised, could cause misrepresentation of facts.
