Armenia: Reporting on Women and Young People
Mentoring helps journalists produce relevant content for radio.
Armenia: Reporting on Women and Young People
Mentoring helps journalists produce relevant content for radio.
Three Armenian reporters are producing radio reports on issues facing women and young people as part of an IWPR project aimed at promoting professional, ethical journalism.
Marina Galoyan and Liana Margaryan from the capital Yerevan, and Hripsime Hakobyan from the city of Gyumri, are being mentored by Harutyun Mansuryan, a production manager with the international media development organisation Internews.
This IWPR initiative was launched in March, and the FM station Radio Van started broadcasting reports by the three journalists the following month.
One of them was a piece by Margaryan about Yerevan’s Galik University losing its accreditation, making it harder for its graduates to find jobs, and a report by Galoyan about young drug addicts.
The reporters are now working on stories about unemployment among women in Gyumri, domestic violence in Yerevan, and libraries that refuse to lend books to students from outside the capital.
“I think it’s very important to promote media coverage of youth issues,” Margaryan said. “The project gave me the chance to articulate problems facing young people.... My radio report was an important step in building their confidence and giving them faith in their own potential.”
Hakobyan said she hoped her reporting would encourage women in Gyumri to speak out about issues like domestic violence or husbands who prevent their wives working.
“There are a lot of problems in Gyumri. Women and young people will never talk about these issues on television,” she said. “Under these circumstances, radio coverage of women’s issues is essential.”
Hakobyan said the training she was getting was useful because it was practical.
“Working with a radio expert has helped me acquire and develop new skills,” she said. “It’s been more useful to learn by preparing radio reports than by just listening to theory.”
The mentoring programme is part of a project called Caucasus Intersection – Regional Radio Journalists’ Networks, supported by the Norwegian foreign ministry.
