17 Hindi Media Professionals Go Back to School

“The premise of a sound public policy should be that people are responsible, resilient and self governing given the right set of incentives and the framework of law.”

This statement is one of the ten principles of sound public policy adopted by 17 professionals from ten media houses across eight cities in northern India at the three-day residential Certificate Course on Public Policy for Journalists from 13-15 November 2009. The Course was designed and delivered in Hindi, as the Hindi media commands a much larger readership and suffers from a lack of training opportunities as compared to its English counterpart. This Course was supported by the Friedrich Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit (FNF).

Fortunately, both Hindi and English media is now expanding the space it provides to report on matters of concern to the average citizen: how does the government spend my money, what is the status of school education, health care facilities, electricity, water, infrastructure in other parts of the country and the world, how do international institutions affect my day to day life, how do I know a new policy will do what it says without harming the rights of others?

For media professionals, a better understanding of public policy, how it is formulated and how to evaluate its impact on citizens, enables them to better report on important social, political and economic issues. Increased knowledge sharing expands their horizon to challenge conventional solutions and explore innovative liberal solutions to public policy issues which can address the root causes of the problems in the long-term.

This new initiative provided journalists an opportunity to inquire, learn, critically analyze and advocate the principles of sound public policy thereby providing them a tool for evaluation of current and future public policies. Research toolkits provided a framework to analyze each story/ issue/ problem from a policy angle thereby facilitating better and informed articles. Interaction with domain experts in areas of governance, education, and international institutions both a macro and a micro view of the issues which they report on a day to day basis. Open discussions and working groups led to peer to peer exchange of information, ideas and skills.

The inaugural session of the Course saw the presence of Mr Shravan Garg, Group Editor, Dainik Bhaskar, Ms Manali Shah, Executive, Programmes, FNF and Dr Parth J Shah, President, CCS. The Course was facilitated by Ms Swati Chawla.

Key sessions of the Course: