by Mazuba Mwiinga
As Zambia joins other countries on the list of nations where the media is being gagged by sitting governments, Citizen Mobile Reporting has become one of the powerful tools to use to tell stories of social impact vis a vis public service accountability, and giving a voice to women and the young.
Mobile Reporting is a term that describes the use of a Mobile Phone as a reporting tool. The user creates text, photo, video that produces a multi-media based report.
Being a Trainer in this field of journalism has shown me how talented young people are in using mobile apps to create content, edit and share it using a mobile phone. The stories are so intriguing and professionally done.
This has revealed how technological innovation has tremendously reduced the tools of journalism from a huge load of equipment to a pocket sized editing suit.
Featured here are stories done by trained, skilled and talented young woman Chama Chulu from Kabwe and Edgar Mainza from Livingstone; one of the 138 young women and men I have trained in Mobile Reporting Citizen Journalism skills so far under the EU Funded Speak Up Zambia Project since July 2016. The Project is implemented by Netherlands based media NGO Free Press Unlimited, and two Zambian NGOs Alliance for Community Action and House of Consciousness.
The young men and women from Isoka, Mpika, Livingstone, Kabwe, Itezhi-tezhi, Lundazi, Lusaka and Choma have so far produced more than 100 high quality video stories in the areas of social accountability, public service delivery, youth and women issues.
The content generated by the Citizen
Journalists using Media Mobile Apps is shared on Social Media Platforms for the
public to have access to such content. As Citizen Journalists it is their duty to diligently and professionally
create content that conforms to the universal principles and ethics of
journalism, thereby bringing and maintaining the needed sanity to the work of
journalism.
