By Mama A. Touray
Broadcast journalists across the country on Wednesday trained on translation of English news in local languages held at Baobab Holiday Resort hotel.
The training aimed to equip the journalists with the knowledge required to adequately undertake news translation and reporting, to enhance citizens’ participation in the electoral process through accurate information, and to mitigate the security challenges of journalists during the elections and to promote ethical journalism.
Speaking at the opening, President of Gambia Press Union, Sheriff Bojang Junior, described the training as very important and crucial ahead of December presidential election
“As we are approaching the presidential election period but unlike other reporters you the local news readers and announcers that relate information to the people directly needs this training to build your capacity,” he said.
He urged the local news translators to be cautious and avoid disseminating information that will cause chaos in the society.
Yusupha Bojang, a trainer of local news translator into local languages also said: “most of our colleagues who work at the various media houses sometimes are translating from English language to local language like Mandinka, wollof and Fula amongst other languages finds it very difficult, so training and equipping them better understand how to translate by respecting the cultures and norms of those particular ethnic groups is very important.”
“Journalists must respect the culture and ethnic of all what it entails a particular ethnic group to be able to translate effectively without making any harm that will help you disseminate the information to the local people for easy consumption,” he told the trainees.
Bakary Jassey, a trainee said he is expecting to learn a lot from the training to help him better equip himself.
“As we are heading to the election period on how to broadcast news without harming your audience or people living in various communities and this need journalism ethics.
Mariama Sisaho also participant from N24 radio also said she is hoping to learn how to report accurately in local language as most of the times local language news translators delivers hate speech which they don’t know but with the believe that information is what will earn us more audience but with this training she is hoping to learn ethical election reporting without hurting her audience.