Reporting ASEAN’s New Project Kicks Off
BANGKOK, Nov 12 – The Reporting ASEAN program is undertaking a new skills-building and fellowship project for journalists from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam, one that focuses on the perspectives of ASEAN’s newer member countries around ASEAN regionalism and community.
The one-year project, called the ‘CLMV Integration Series’ of the Reporting ASEAN programme, is with the support of the Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) regional grants program of the US Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. Coming under the US Department of State Bureau of East Asia Pacific Affairs, this LMI program supports local and regional small-scale projects for the subregion.
The key activities of the CLMV Integration Series include a reporting fellowship, with a training workshop, that open to journalists from the CLMV countries; a focused research study
Journalists at a Reporting ASEAN workshop.
into the needs and views of media organizations and journalists around covering issues related to ASEAN regionalism; and a set of features/analyses for the Reporting ASEAN media series.
The Reporting ASEAN program, which is hosted by Probe Media Foundation Inc, will also produce a reporting tool for reporting on ASEAN issues. The tool is envisioned to be translated into several ASEAN languages to maximise its use by journalists, communicators and those needing to write about ASEAN issues.
The CLMV series, which began in October 2018, started with the research part, which involves touching base with different media organizations in the four countries. The fellowship phase will get underway in early 2019.
Core to Reporting ASEAN and its CLMV Integration Series is the creation of a professional, homegrown media venue that is grounded in ASEAN realities.
Now a decade old, the Lower Mekong Initiative is a multilateral partnership initiated by the United States government with the lower Mekong countries of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. It seeks to “deliver equitable, sustainable and inclusive economic growth” in the lower Mekong basin countries by addressing regional transboundary development issues, with focus on six areas – from environment and water, health, agriculture, connectivity, education and energy security, according to the LMI website. (END/JS/2018/Reporting ASEAN)
