Assembly, media houses explore ways to strengthen, broaden collaboration |25 April 2018

Representatives from different media houses have once again met with members of the media committee of the National Assembly to explore ways to strengthen and broaden their working collaborations and further improve coverage of Assembly deliberations and using it as a great source of different news items.

Also present for the meeting was the chief executive of the Seychelles Media Commission, Ibrahim Afif, and it was the elected member for Mont Buxton, Gervais Henrie, who is also the chairman of the media committee in the National Assembly, who chaired the meeting.

The media representatives seized the opportunity to voice numerous constraints they face to cover National Assembly proceedings in the new and evolving media landscape.

Lack of journalists trained in parliamentary reporting to tackle the increasing load of parliamentary work was one of the main concerns raised.

The Assembly also expressed the need for more in-depth investigative reporting on matters like new laws and how they impact on the masses, more interviews with MNAs on their work, controversial Assembly matters, among a host of other issues.

At the end of the meeting, the media committee of the Assembly and the media representatives agreed to try to address a number of issues which include the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) TV  considering reintroducing the weekly Assembly report, media houses doing in-depth reporting on controversial Assembly matters, the Assembly helping media houses to train journalists in parliamentary reporting,  journalist paying more attention to the different documents tabled in the Assembly,  journalists reporting on the work of  the different committees in the Assembly.