News Editing & Feature Writing

Centre of Professional Excellence (CoPE) under the auspices of NED Academy, NED University of Engineering and Technology in collaboration with Mr. Noman Ansari (Karachi University) and Syed Oun Abbas (Bol Network) organized 4-day training on News Editing & Feature Writing – Batch 1' on April 21, 22 & 28, 29, 2018. The objectives of the workshop were multi-folded: To acquaint the participants about the importance of news in respect of behind-the-scenes aspects of the newsroom, journalism, news list analyzing, editing, deliverance, making interested, etc. under the rules of the Press And Publications Regulatory Authority (PAPRA).

In total, 14 participants of different organizations attended the course. These included Anchor Persons, other media related personnel and a few participants from academics as well. Following key organizations participated in the event: Bol Network, Jang Group, and University of Karachi.

Mr. Ahmed Yusuf, associated with the Daily Dawn, with loads of news editing and feature writing experience was the expert facilitator for the training.

Lectures, presentations, handouts, experiential learning, Q/A sessions, real life examples, internet search, and problem solving were used as learning methodologies to facilitate the participants get the best out of the 4-day training. The sessions also contained a series of practical exercises and real life case studies to impart hands-on skills. Networking hi-teas were used to discuss concepts and practical problems.

Body of knowledge covered in the training included: how to apply the basic elements of Associated Press style and editing marks to writing, how to select content, prepare copy for publication in a variety of platforms, edit photographs, write headlines, choose type, and paginate printed pages, aspects of journalism by participating in classroom lectures, practical editing assignments, regular readings, weekly quizzes and comprehensive examinations.

The training was unanimously evaluated as exceptional and all participants expressed their utmost level of satisfaction with the training content as well as deliverance; in particular, the participants highly appreciated the design of the course that allowed real-time case-based applied learning as well as numerous opportunities for learning from experience.

At end of the training, Certificate Award Ceremony was held where Dr. Sarosh Hashmat Lodi (Vice Chancellor, NED University) was Chief Guest. The Chief Guest distributed certificates to the participants and awarded Shield of Honour to the training facilitator. The ceremony ended with views from the Chief Guest wherein he expressed the need of launching further short courses, certifications, diploma and degree programmes in the field of media sciences with special focus on the related engineering aspects such as videography, lighting, sound, etc.