Forum Pengada Layanan Representatives Join Media Handling Training

The efforts to reduce violence violence against women and its impacts are very important and lately it has been getting a lot of media attention. The people’s awareness and understanding of violence against women in Indonesia is still limited, so that it is necessary to disseminate the information through media. To that end, the MAMPU Program conducts “Media Handling Skills” training for the Forum Pengada Layanan, in order to deliver the key message to journalists and the media correctly.

This one-day training was held on 2 June 2017 and attended by 11 representatives from the Forum Pengada Layanan and its partners from various regions. The facilitators and resource persons in this training are senior journalists from various media, both printed and electronic.

The resource person in this training is Febrina Siahaan, who is a senior journalist and Independent Journalist Alliance (AJI) activist.  First, she explained about the spokespersons’ mistakes when being interviewed by the media. To understand this topic, participants were asked to analyse and evaluate the press conference videos from two different spokesmen, and assess what was good and what was wrong.

“In an interview or press conference, the most important things are key message and gesture.The spokesman or spokeperson is a representation of an institution, so it is important to show the empathy”, said Febrina.

She added that the spokesperson should also have good understanding on how the media work, such as framing, news values, and interviews, and have good media relations skills. Besides, it is also explained about news writing tips that fit and how to develop key message.

Umi Kalsum, a senior journalist in a news digital media, conveys the process of how a news enters the media, until it is published. The understanding of process is important for the organisation in order to set the strategy.

In the second session of the training, the participants were asked to practice in handling the media. Each participant was asked to make key message(s) and being interviewed by reporters in various methods. One of the methods practiced is the “Door Stop”. Door stop interview is the most difficult categorised interview for the spokesperson, because it was done unexpectedly by the journalist. The risks of the door stop interview are the unpreparedness of the spokesperson in answering reporters’ questions, the likelihood of being heavily dribbled, and the emotion easily ignited.

Each participant was recorded and filmed as the exercise of the interview. Then, the interview results were discussed and evaluated; what is good, what needs to be fixed, tips on how to put key message during the interview, as well as tips on gesture.

As the closing, the participants were asked to shared their lesson learned from this training.

“Before, I have little confidence to answer questions from journalists and the media, but now I have more confidence,” said Rosita from SSP Soe, East Nusa Tenggara.

Leli from SPI Labuhan Batu, North Sumatera stated, “Now, I know the importance of key message and gesture when dealing with the media. From now on I will write key messages before the interview.”

While Nancy from Gasira Maluku said, “So far, our relationship with media has only relied on friendship without knowing what media needs. But today I know what is needed”.