Getting the facts across

20 Dec 2010

On a windy Friday afternoon we travel to Hilversum to meet Rajan and Lillian, two media professonials from Nepal and Zambia who are currently following the Facts and Formats course at RNTC thanks to a scholarship under the Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (NFP).

RNTC's Facts and Formats course aims to strengthen the capacity of broadcast journalists and producers from the South and their organizations. They learn to produce factual programming designed to inform their audiences about development-related issues and important events in their everyday lives, using a variety of formats.

We join Rajan and Lillian during their lunch break in the canteen of the adjacent Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) building. They are halfway through their 12-week course and preparations are in full swing for the final assignment. You would expect the atmosphere to be stressed. Instead, it is friendly, almost laid-back. After lunch we are being shown around the various recording studios, classrooms and editing rooms. Finally, we briefly watch a group discussion exercise in which Rajan mock-interviews Lillian about water issues, the central theme of their final assignment.
 

Antenna Foundation Nepal

Rajan RNTCRajan Parajuli has been working as a producer for Antenna Foundation Nepal (AFN) in Kathmandu for the past eight years and has recently been promoted to production manager. AFN is an NGO dedicated to the development of public service broadcasting in Nepal. Its programmes are often produced in collaboration with regional Nepalese radio stations. It also has its own training centre.

 

Focus on farmers

Lillian RNTCLillian Mwenya Mumba works as producer and presenter for Zambia's National Agricultural Information Services which falls directly under the Ministry of Agriculture. Her programmes are specifically aimed at farmers. She runs a daily ten-minute programme called Rural Notebook and a special Sunday edition called Farm Magazine. She also regularly contributes to the ministry's in-house magazine.
 

A good reputation

Rajan heard about this course through his colleagues. RNTC has a very good reputation in Nepal and almost all senior radio staff have, at some point in their career, attended a course in Hilversum. Lilian first heard about RNTC ten years ago and became interested after a friend of hers had done the same course.

Keen to get started

Rajan and Lillian both believe that the course is well suited to their specific needs. For Rajan these consist of exploring and developing new formats to bring information in a more interesting way and learning how to educate people without making them feel as if they are being taught. He is very keen to start applying the formats he has tried out during the course.
 
 

It's all in the presentation

Throughout the course Lillian quickly became aware that it is not only the facts that matter, but also the way in which they are presented. Before, Lillian used to be a quite serious presenter. Now, she is determined to focus on different approaches, better scripts and a combination of formats, and move away from 'traditional-style' interviews to more interactive discussions and montages.
 

Sharing the knowledge

For Rajan sharing and passing on knowledge is almost ingrained in his system, as it is the core mission of the Antenna Foundation. AFN’s training centre, part-funded by USAID, provides a dozen training courses a year for regional radio stations. Lillian is planning on organizing a workshop for her colleagues upon her return to Lusaka.
 

More information

 

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