We are thrilled to announce the successful completion of two online workshops, ‘Covering Wildlife & Conservation Stories Mindfully’, tailored for Hindi and English journalists. The workshops, offered free of charge and open to all interested journalists, aimed to enhance reporting on wildlife and conservation issues. The English workshop took place on March 1, 2025, followed by the Hindi workshop on March 8, 2025.
The workshops aimed to promote strong and mindful journalism by sensitizing mainstream and regional journalists about the need for factual, scientific, and dignified coverage of wildlife and conservation stories.
The Hindi workshop was led by Hridayesh Joshi, eminent journalist known for his path-breaking environmental journalism in Hindi.
The English workshop was led by Prerna Singh Bindra, renowned conservationist and journalist known for her stellar conservation journalism.
Both workshops featured Raza Kazmi, conservationist, writer, and Conservation Communicator at WCT, as the host.
The major themes these workshops (in both languages) sought to engage the participants in were:
- The importance of using the right language while reporting on human-wildlife conflict (HWC).
- Understanding the difference between non-negative human-wildlife interaction and conflict.
- The urgent need to highlight wildlife crime, the correct way to report such crimes, and create awareness about wildlife laws.
- The importance of maintaining high standards of scientific accuracy while reporting, and also the negative repercussions of sensationalizing wildlife news.
- How good journalism can create a strong conservation impact.
- Pitching conservation-related stories to editors.