Course launch: Dabanga provides online journalism training

Dabanga: Radio | TV | Online  has launched a new journalistic training programme in Arabic on the online platform  Totem. 

Dabanga provides this service free of charge to all journalists, including working and early-career professionals and those interested in the media field.  

This programme, for now consisting of two courses, uses different real-life scenarios to test participants’ knowledge of journalistic standards and practices as well as the situations a journalist encounters in their day-to-day work as they prepare to produce a range of different news stories. 

The courses are based on Dabanga’s  Editorial Guidelines, which reflect internationally-recognised standards of ethical journalism. Each course consists of seven modules, and uses real-life scenarios to test participants knowledge of journalistic standards and practices. The courses are self-guided, meaning participants can start at any moment and can complete the course in their own time. 

The aim of  Course 1, Research and Reporting, is to highlight challenges and situations that journalists face during their everyday work as they prepare to research and report on different (news) stories. Topics covered include integrity and independence in journalism, fairness, impartiality and covering rallies and protests.  

Course 2, Production and Planning, builds on the first course and aims to highlight challenges and situations that journalists face during their everyday work as they prepare to plan and produce news stories. Topics covered in this course include getting the news right, dealing with anonymous sources, breaking news, crime stories, and dealing with complaints. 

The answers to the course questions will be evaluated. Trainees will receive a certificate of success at the end of each course, on the condition they succeeded at a rate of 60 per cent. They are also requested to fill out the questionnaires at the end of the course. 

These courses come in addition to Dabanga’s WhatsApp courses on the basics of mobile journalism, which Dabanga delivered between 2018 and 2021 to several hundred aspiring and citizen journalists. 

Dabanga has developed its journalism courses together with experienced trainers and experts in the field of online learning and journalism, with the aim to make its Online Academy courses also available to academic institutes and civil society partners online and offline, and to work together to develop new courses. Dabanga therefore invites Sudanese organisations or educational institutes interested in partnering, or sponsoring one of our courses, to contact us. 

All courses are offered in Arabic only but can be provided in English in consultation with Dabanga’s Online Academy team. Additional courses developed by other organisations in various languages are available on the Totem course website.