KARACHI: Speakers at a virtual session have stressed the need of highlighting environmental issues, saying Pakistan is amongst the worst affected countries by climate change, despite contributing less than 1 percent of the world's greenhouse gases.
The event was organized by Global Neighbourhood for Media Innovations under their Pakistan Entrepreneurial Journalism Program.
Speaking to the session on climate and wildlife protection necessity, journalist Gharida Farooqui said that media particularly the digital news platforms are playing an important role in highlighting Pakistan's environmental issues.
Journalists Aafia Salam, Zoofeen Ebrahim, and others also spoke.
They said that these projects can play an important role in highlighting the issues of climate change and wildlife in Pakistan. "The land is not just ours, but other species are also living here. We must take care of them too in order to maintain the eco system, otherwise we would suffer more due to the environmental complications," they said.
The capstone launch ceremony was divided into four themes of start-ups - gender representation and social media, ethics as core consideration for localized digital news platforms, climate and wildlife protection necessity, not choice, the relationship between economy, and under-emphasized societal values.
The event organizers said that in the first phase of the program, a total of sixty-six journalists, content creators, and bloggers/ vloggers were provided technical training in entrepreneurial journalism. A smaller batch of 20 most eligible journalists was formed through selection process for the second phase of the program to craft their new platforms and ideas into sustainable business models.
President GNMI, Najia Ashar said in her keynote that the objective of the program was to provide essential training to journalists in content production, digital marketing, and monetization as well as resources to help them launch projects.
"It was a learning process not only for our participants but also for us. A pool of twenty national and international experts in media, technology, and business was engaged in conducting the trainings with us.
The twenty news platforms that were launched in the ceremony target different audiences. Five news projects in total are focused on climate change and wildlife. Five projects focus on women and their issues from different parts of the country. Other projects serve different audiences including one for persons with disabilities, parents who have children with special needs, etc.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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