As part of the Information Services Department’s ongoing transformation programme, 20 journalists of the Department are undergoing a one-week capacity building training to sharpen their news reporting and editing skills.
The journalists will be taken through concepts of news writing, writing news reports, writing for the web, pictorial and audio-visual reports and feature-writing.
After the one-week training programme, the journalists will also undergo a three-week practical attachment at the Daily Graphic, the Ghanaian Times and Ghana News Agency to learn the house style of those state media houses.
Before the training programme, the Deputy Minister for Information, Fatimatu Abubakar, said the reorganisation and transformation of the Department were aimed at making it the leading government Public Relations outfit of the government.
She said that would enable the Department to perform its mandate effectively in the fast-growing media landscape.
She said the training was meant to help officers write articles that would help change the public’s attitude to contribute their quota to national development.
“The capacity building exercise that has been tailor-made is to equip you with relevant skills to ensure effective service delivery,” she added.
The Acting Chief Information Officer, Mr David Owusu Amoah, urged the newsroom staff to take advantage of the training to learn from the resource persons who are well-versed in diverse news gathering and disseminating.
The ISD newly refurbished newsroom is linked to an App ‘Bonsu Platform’ set up at the Public Coordinating Division of the ISD to produce real-time reports of the activities of the government from Public Relations Officers at Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
Journalists in the newsroom will process the reports into news to be posted on the Department’s news portal, www.ghanatoday.gov.gh, GhanaToday Magazine and distribute the same to other media houses.
So far, under the transformation agenda, critical divisions of the Department, including the Research Unit, which collates public reaction reports on issues of national interest, has been refurbished and retooled to gather these reports scientifically so that they can better inform governments policies.
In addition, the Public Relations Coordinating Division, which offers public relations services to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), has also been revamped to ensure that it performs its duties efficiently.
Ishmael Batoma, ISD
