The Citizen Journalism Program
Karachi is Pakistan’s largest city with 15 million inhabitants, and more arriving every day to the makeshift sprawl that crawls in all directions. Like any mega-city, Karachi’s lower income areas get covered by media only when tragedy or conflict breaks out, like a fire, a murder, or a rape. When the conflict ends, the media disappears. But important issues in these under-developed and under-covered areas persist, and while the media may be silent, residents aren’t.
“People from these areas are already very active on social media, talking (often angrily) about issues in their neighborhood,” said Zehra Abid. Abid runs the Citizen Journalism Program in Karachi. The project looks at gaps in coverage and representation as an opportunity and Abid views social media as a platform to address these gaps. She asked, “How can we use that space (social media) to generate content that is actually telling the story of these places for the community?”
The Citizen Journalism Program answers that question by training young adults (18–25) from these neighborhoods in writing, video production, and photography and then advising them over a four month period as they produce stories about their own neighborhoods. During the first round of the project, Abid and her colleagues recruited and mentored 200 young adults from nine different areas in Karachi.
Abid started by finding a local liaison in each of the project’s target communities, and then going on field visits to get a better understanding of residents’ situations and information needs. She collected anecdotes from locals on the issues most important to them and formed ideas about what should be covered in each neighborhood. Then, through the representatives from each area, Abid distributed flyers with a call to join the project. She reached out to community centers, schools, and colleges in the target areas and posted flyers in hospitals and libraries.
Education wasn’t a criteria in the recruitment process. These neighborhoods are historically underserved and many of the young people who joined the program come from low-income and low-education background. Abid was more concerned with finding participants who “were interested in reporting or photography and had an interest in engaging with their community.”
Each recruit underwent a four day training process led by local journalists. Then, as they developed stories over the four month period, trainers continued to guide them through the reporting process. Abid and the trainers worked to strike a balance between upholding journalistic standards and heavy handed editing. “A lot of [the stories] could be improved in many ways, but then it wouldn’t be their work. We didn’t want to write it for them,” Abid said.
The trainers also had to urge the young people to push beyond the narratives they were familiar with from watching local television news, the preferred source of information in Pakistan. For example many participants initially pitched stories about garbage and waste which is a major issue in Karachi, and gets a lot of screen time. Abid wanted to push them to represent stories and voices in their communities that otherwise wouldn’t get covered. “The understanding that these reporters have about the issues in their neighborhood is phenomenal. They have a lot of clarity about what is needed, ” she said. This project taps into their unique access to their communities and gives them the skills and platform to tell their own stories while providing needed information to their neighbors.
Work was initially published in a Facebook group and eventually in the form of newsletters on the Citizen Journalist Program website. Reporters and photographers covered (in both English and Urdu) water shortages in their neighborhood and the decay of a local heritage site. They produced profiles of everyone from shoe makers to Olympic hopefuls. These young people became representatives for the needs of their neighborhoods and, Abid said, “They are connecting you with a deeper understanding of the communities that you aren’t getting from national news.”
The initial round of reporting wrapped up last weekend with a certification event. The keynote address to the project participants was about the importance of local citizen reporting in a media landscape that is heavily skewed towards national issues. Abid is focusing on writing up results of the project and keeping in touch with participants. She’s hoping to help the budding journalists find internships with local and national media outlets. Four participants have already secured media jobs.
Going forward Abid wants to keep the newsletters and social media sites open for participants to post to and continue to get professional editing and exposure. “They have a lot of potential and if we had a bit more time, or a second round, and if there’s a way to keep these students engaged then a lot of important stories could come out as a result.” Abid is currently looking for some new financial support for the project after her initial funding, from USAID, ran out at the end of 2017.
The Listening Post Collective is a project of Internews. We provide journalists, newsroom leaders, and non-profits tools and advice to create meaningful conversations with their communities. We believe responsible reporting begins with listening. From there, media outlets and community organizations can create news stories that respond to people’s informational needs, reflect their lives, and enable them to make informed decisions.
