As part of its continuing efforts to provide professional development opportunities for journalists and enable sustained and focused coverage of media killings, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism has conducted regional training seminar workshops on Media Murders and the Quest for Justice since January. It has selected 15-18 media gatekeepers (editors, desk managers, producers, station managers, and media owners) and senior reporters from the community, mainstream, and online media based in the regions and in the National Capital Region.

A number of PPI members were given priority slots to the seminars. They got positive feedback from the organizers. “Their participation is impressive. We hope to invite other members in our future training programs,” Che delos Reyes, PCIJ training director, said.

The seminar series, which is being supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), will build on the results of the first round of PCIJ training seminars on media killings conducted in the early part of 2011.

Their second round of seminars aims to scale up and consolidate community consensus and joint action by media front liners and gatekeepers on common concerns that confront journalists who cover the killings, and on measures and best practices that media gatekeepers could implement to assure adequate protection for journalists at risk.

It also aims to promote and upgrade editorial standards and practices in covering media killings as stories that deserve sustained and focused reportage. The seminars feature breakthroughs and challenges on cases of media murders, and an assessment of how the Maguindanao massacre in 2009 has changed the course of doing journalism in the country.

The seminars also offer practical safety tips, legal and journalism tool kits, and hands-on exercises to help the participants refine their reporting skills and ethical obligations as professional journalists.