2 days so far of CJ training

UPDATED 4 JULY 1700 HRS – WITH PHOTOS

(note: CJ = citizen journalism)

it had been 2 days of classes at malaysiakini. i arrived in KL on 30 june afternoon and met up with my friend, sharon, where we went wandering around mid-valley. checked in the hotel in the evening. it is the sentral hotel, which i understand was opened in may this year. it is located just opposite KL sentral and behind the monorail. nice comfortable hotel. the pictures below here show the entrance and the lobby.

the room has a large flat LCD TV screen, as you can see in the following picture. the door at the bathroom double up as the door for the bath area and the toilet/sink area. creative concept. don’t like the ‘open’ concept wardrobe though. all the clothes are visible without door. oh best of all is of course the hotel’s wi-fi. very easy to get connectedand no disruption. i understand that there is a router on every floor, thus the ease of connection

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the training was held in malaysiakini’s office. on the first day, we get to meet 3 ‘top men’ of malaysiakini who gave us a talk. prem, the CEO, kabilan the chief editor and vkii from the newsdesk. at 6.00pm when the newsdesk had a meeting, all of us trainees (17 of us btw, 6 from penang) joined them. it was interesting to see how the newsdesk meeting was carried out for the first time. on the 2nd day, we joined the meeting too.

the 2nd day started with an assignment for us. some followed malaysiakini’s journalists to cover events while some were asked to be out on the streets doing a vox pop (voice of the people) on the issue of the rosmah’s ‘perempuan puaka’ video. my group did not get anyone to talk (although we approached more than 10) except the taxi driver when we hailed his taxi. the other groups did managed to get a few but some said they found difficulty too in getting people to talk especially when rosmah’s name was mentioned. our group realised our mistake in not being able to get people to talk when we found out the other group approached those who are seated either at coffee-shop or bus-stops, while we stand at the sidewalk and approached people walking up and down, crossing the street. most of them said they were in a hurry and going somewhere so can’t entertained us. well we learned from experience and next time will blog on it.

the last photo here shows class in progress with maran, malaysiakini’s CJ coordinator (somewhat like our ‘daddy’ trainer.) the foreground notebook you see on the table with handphone and note pad is where i am seated.

(SORRY had problems loading photos on my blog. something seems to be wrong. will try again tomorrow)