Reporting on Food: SISJ Science Journalism Mentoring Program
23 July 2017 11:48 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Society of Indonesian Science Journalists (SISJ) just held the 1st face-to-face meeting of its science journalists mentoring program. The program, which is funded by The Sasakawa Peace Foundation from Japan and The British Council from UK, focus on food reporting as its core.
According to Harry Surjadi, the Chairman of the SISJ, food issues are obviously important but yet neglected in the country’s mass media, both local and national.
“We aim to train young journalists across the Indonesian archipelago to learn about science journalism and to apply this for food issues coverage,” says Surjadi.
Indonesia, a country well known for its abundant natural resource, is full with paradox in term of food issues. For example, the people mostly eat “tempeh”,-- a cake-like fermented soybeans, but most of these beans are imported from the United States. The country is also rich in carbohydrate’s source but the commodities are not well developed compared to rice.
This kind of paradox has not been well reported in Indonesia especially in provincial scale. Thus, the mentoring program gathered 20 young journalists originated from local newspapers such as from Central Java, Southeast Sulawesi, West Kalimantan, and Jambi (Sumatra) to learn about science journalism and contextualize it in local issues.
“By gathering young journalists from local media, we hope that science journalism could flourish in every major islands and answer the local problems of food in it,” said Surjadi.
The meeting was held from 21-22 July 2017 in Jakarta and invited people from the Department of Agriculture, NGO that works on food sovereignty, and researchers from Bogor Agricultural University.
As an Indonesian-version of Science Journalism Cooperation (SjCOOP) Asia, the mentoring program will involve online interaction between mentor and mentees and produce science stories that will be published in both national and local medias.
TEMPO